


to meet beyond shadows

by theputterer



Series: Binary Star Systems [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Canon Divergence - Star Wars Expanded Universe, Earn Your Happy Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Kylo Ren & Ben Solo are Different People, Kylo Ren & Ben Solo are Twins, M/M, Mythology References, Not Canon Compliant - Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Romance, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-02-22 22:40:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 34
Words: 242,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23268175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theputterer/pseuds/theputterer
Summary: Five years after the Battle of Crait, the Resistance wages a fierce war against the First Order. Jedi Master Ben Organa-Solo guides the New Jedi Order in the war, and their fight against Supreme Leader Kylo Ren and his Knights.But there are evils waiting to be awakened. Words that must be said. Myths that must be realized. Brothers that must be confronted.The end is near.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Binary Star Systems [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616866
Comments: 583
Kudos: 185





	1. Thirty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Solo always shoots first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is third in a series. It follows [and the world will be better for this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22306288/chapters/53278168) (a THE FORCE AWAKENS au) and [that looking-glass ache](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22671766/chapters/54189256) (a THE LAST JEDI au).
> 
> In this series: Leia and Han had identical twins, Bail and Ben.
> 
> Bail turned to the Dark Side; and Ben did not.

The sun overhead is brighter and hotter than any that he has ever seen, yet its brilliant rays and lethal heat is felt only as fiercely as a typical sun on just about any other world, thanks to the massive clear domes that cover the capital city of Mantooine. Mazul stands like an oasis on the desert planet, the translucent coverings that protect its citizens equally from the devastating sunlight and agonizing sandstorms appearing as mirages from a distance. Outside the domes, Mantooine is an endless, beautiful desert of orange, yellow, and red sand. Inside the domes, Mantooine transforms into a world of limitless color, until it almost feels like the sun’s brilliance will be drowned out by the peoples’ fashion.

Ben, in his white shirt, black trousers, and black boots, has drawn stares all day for his largely monochrome appearance. He’s sure he’d continue to draw stares, if the sprawling battle that has engulfed Mazul had not begun.

As it is, the sun is now threatened to be overshadowed by the billowing pillars of smoke pouring out of buildings, and the lasers fired by the ground troops, stormtroopers versus Resistance soldiers and Mantooian civilians. Speeders zip through the streets, the closest thing to an air battle, as flight within the city is strictly prohibited, and not even the First Order was able to get a TIE fighter squadron inside the capital city dome.

Unfortunately, they are still able to get UA-TTs into the city.

_ “Move!” _ Ben shouts, sprinting for all he’s worth, as lasers land in the sand all around him, scorching the grains and sending bits of debris flying into the air. He can hear the odd scraping claw of the UA-TT pursuing him, and reminds himself that the plus side of the First Order optimizing for this kind of heavy machinery means they are not interested in leveling Mazul itself.

Just the Jedi Master they are pursuing.

The citizens of Mazul either heed his direction that they get out of the way, or see the UA-TT firing ferociously and need no other warning, for they all seem to dive to the side, darting into thin alleys or through back doors. Glass windows of shops and restaurants on either side of the street are blown out, signs and eaves collapsing under the weight of the onslaught. The UA-TT manages to shoot out a balcony, and Ben skids to a stop before he can run directly under the falling tile.

Still, he has to raise his hands, and use the Force to prevent any brick from hitting his head.

_ “Ben? Where did you go--” _

“I’m in the industrial district,” Ben says, yelling into his comlink as he turns, racing down a new, slightly larger street. The UA-TT has a harder time making the turn, but with the bigger space, can move much faster now, and Ben thinks,  _ This was a mistake. _ “Heading north on… Ah, kriff, Rose, hang on--”

A dozen stormtroopers are marching down the street with clear purpose: two carry blasters, two carry laser axes, two carry riot control batons, and six carry electrostaffs.

This unusual assortment of weapons means that Ben knows exactly who they’ve been waiting for.

He unclips his lightsaber from his belt, igniting the brilliant dark blue crossguard sword.

“You found me,” he says, shrugging a little. “Come get me.”

The six with the electrostaffs race forward, moving in a synchronized formation, two running around Ben, two coming in at the sides, and two facing him directly. Only one of the stormtroopers in front of him moves to attack, and Ben just finishes parrying his electrostaff away when he has to spin on the spot to block a strike from one of the stormtroopers behind him. He then catches another electrostaff, twisting his lightsaber so the staff gets caught on one of the small blades of the crossguard design, while using his free hand to telekinetically throw one of the stormtroopers off his feet, sending him flying into a couple other members of his squad.

The UA-TT is still firing behind him, and Ben watches as a laser meant for him ends up in the chestplate of a stormtrooper instead. The stormtrooper falls, dead.

It is not the first time the First Order has tried to kill Ben and instead caused the death of one of their own soldiers.

But it is still a terrible thing to witness.

Leaving the stormtroopers on the ground, and abandoning all caution and possibly sanity as well, Ben turns, running straight at the UA-TT. Using Force Jump, he leaps from the ground, clambering up the UA-TT. He slices the guns off the sides of the Walker with his lightsaber, and cuts a hole through the top of the UA-TT to reveal the pilot inside, staring at him with huge eyes.

“Hi,” Ben says. “Lean back for a second.”

The pilot yells, diving as far back as his seat allows as Ben plunges his lightsaber into the control board of the UA-TT, rendering it functionally useless. He straightens, neatly deflecting the two lasers fired at him with a smooth flourish of the blue blade, the stormtroopers still waiting for him in the street.

He jumps down to meet them.

A streetlight catches his eye. He kicks out at the stormtrooper nearest him, a very lazy form of  _ sun djem _ that undoubtedly does the trick, as it sends her to the sandy earth in a modulated  _ huff, _ finally allowing himself some breathing room. He backs up, until he’s almost standing against the wall of an apothecary, and then he reaches out, yanking the streetlight out of the dirt.

He pulls it through the air, using the end of it to sweep three of the stormtroopers together, rolling them in the thin metal until they’re tied together, sides to sides, like a fallen tree. Ben jabs his lightsaber forward, his disarming slash sending the nearest wielder’s electrostaff in the air, and he catches it, spinning quickly, a weapon in each hand.

There are only four stormtroopers left; they have a blaster, a laser axe, and two riot control batons between them. The rest of these weapons lay discarded in the street, next to their dead or incapacitated wielders.

“You don’t have to do this,” Ben says, walking forward slowly, letting his lightsaber drag in the sand, sending up red sparks next to the blue fire. “There is another way.”

“With the Resistance?” one of the stormtroopers spits.

“If you’re interested,” Ben replies, diplomatically. “We are proud to count quite a few former stormtroopers among our ranks. But if you’re tired of war, we’d be glad to help you settle elsewhere, away from the First Order.”

“It’s a trick,” another stormtrooper hisses to the others. “The Jedi were known for their mind tricks.”

Ben shakes his head. “Not like this. Not this Jedi.”

He’s almost to them; but they’ve started backing up.

“Finn,” Ben says. “Have you heard of Finn?”

The one to his immediate left pauses in his retreat.

“He was known as FN-2187, once,” Ben says. “And now he’s an officer in the Resistance Military. Come meet him. He’ll tell you his story, the life he’s made all on his own, on his own terms.”

“A  _ trick,” _ another stormtrooper spits.

“I’m not tricking you,” Ben says. “I only want to help you.”

Looking between the four stormtroopers, he tosses the electrostaff aside. And then, still holding eye contact, he extinguishes his lightsaber, clipping it back to his belt. He lifts his hands in the air, indicating he is obviously, painfully unarmed.

Though she’s several systems away, he can practically  _ hear _ Rey gritting her teeth over this move.

He splays his fingers wide in the air, his black fingerless gloves dotted with grains of orange sand, and stares down the stormtroopers.

“Let’s talk,” he says, gently.

“A trick,” the same stormtrooper repeats, but with clear hesitation.

“No,” Ben says. “I would genuinely like to talk. But we’re kind of in the middle of a skirmish here. Can we move this conversation indoors?”

His success rate with this approach is not great, but he thinks it’s improving. He isn’t sure what to chalk this upswing of success up to; Finn’s efforts in getting his story out there? The sci/med team doing more advanced research in how brainwashing works? But he’s pretty sure it isn’t thanks to  _ him, _ exactly.

His general calm demeanor and casual friendliness might have won over Finn and Rey on the  _ Millennium Falcon _ almost five years earlier, but there was a whole host of other variables going on at the time that cannot be discounted.

“There’s a public gymnasium a few blocks from here,” he continues. “Let’s just go inside and talk, yeah?”

Slowly-- _ slowly-- _ the stormtroopers lower their weapons. They look at Ben.

“Please, take off your helmets,” Ben says, still speaking in his best gentle tone.

Similarly slowly, they do.

They are so young; he knows this, knows stormtroopers will always be close to Rey and Finn’s age due to the age of the First Order itself, but it is still always surprising to see the youth of an unmasked stormtrooper. The four of them stare at Ben with skin still speckled with acne, cheeks round with baby fat, the tiniest of wrinkles forming around wide eyes.

“Good, thank you,” Ben says. “Please, follow me--”

He breaks off, feeling the sudden presence behind him.

He spins on the spot.

A First Order Officer stands there, recognizable in a black uniform that contrasts sharply with the white armor of the squad of stormtroopers behind him. His scowl is sharp, clearly visible to Ben from twenty yards away.

_ “Idiots,” _ the Officer spits. “The Resistance is in shambles--”

“It is  _ not,” _ Ben snarls. “We’re growing by the day--”

“The First Order has the full support of the galaxy--”

“You don’t even have the full support of the Core Worlds--”

“The Jedi Order is weaker than ever--”

“Tell that to my Jedi, there are four of us now--”

“And this man is the identical twin brother of the Supreme Leader,” the Officer finishes, his scowl twisting into a pleased grin when Ben hesitates. “He will never be fully trusted by the galaxy, how can you expect to trust him  _ now?” _

Ben holds his gaze.

“Have you spoken to my brother recently?” Ben asks. “Because I have a message I was hoping to get to him today.”

The Officer’s face turns a spectacular shade of puce.

_ “Kill the Jedi!” _ he screams, and Ben sighs.

If he had a credit for every time he heard those words, he’d be able to singlehandedly fund the Resistance.

He reignites his lightsaber, as a volley of brilliant laser fire flies towards him.

* * *

“You know, Rey… I like you very much.”

“I like you too, Poe,” Rey replies, frowning a little, but refusing to let Poe’s deep sigh shake her excited mood.

The base is, as always, loud around them and Rey has to strain a little to hear Poe over the general hubbub. The familiar sounds of starfighters landing on the large tarmac half a mile away, their engines roaring loudly, only to be drowned out by the even louder roars of the starfighters and other transports taking off, bound for other parts of the galaxy. Not to mention the fact that they got a new illicit shipment of blasters from their friends in the Ryloth System, meaning a group from the Engineering Corps is busily taking apart these weapons and rebuilding them and testing them, rapid fire lasers smashing against hard cement walls. And then of course, they recently got a massive package from Bothawui, opened with careful hesitation by the administrative team, to reveal enough Bothan food to feed the entire base for two months; the kitchen staff has never had so many volunteers eager to help store these new provisions.

In short, it’s just another day at the headquarters of the Resistance, on Ajan Kloss.

Poe rubs a hand over his grizzled beard, bits of gray lightening the dark hair.

“And you know, Ben’s my oldest friend,” Poe continues. “I’m also very fond of him. And Finn… I’d happily die on a battlefield for Finn. I’m deeply in love with that man.”

“I know,” Rey says, her frown deepening. “What does this have to do with my request?”

“I mean, not only will I be terribly sad that I’ve killed you, but that I will then immediately be similarly murdered by your boyfriend, and your chaos twin.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “Kriff, does everyone call Finn and me chaos twins?”

Poe’s eyes sparkle. “Hey, if the moniker fits…”

“Okay, first off,” Rey says. “As my chaos twin… Finn is going to think it’s really stellar as well. He’ll be next in line to try it.”

Poe groans.

“Secondly, you won’t kill me, Poe,” Rey says. “It’ll work.”

“But you can see why I’m not so sure it will, right?”

Rey scowls. “Trust the Force--”

“Ah, but I don’t, you know? That’s your wheelhouse, not mine.”

“Okay, then trust  _ me. _ It’ll work.” She grins. “And it’ll look  _ amazing, _ I promise.”

Poe grimaces. “You do know the way to my heart is the potential of a badass moment…”

“And it’ll be a learning experience as well. To see how well I can do it.”

“How  _ well _ you can do it?” he exclaims. “Rey, you want to try  _ jumping over _ my  _ starfighter _ while it’s going full speed! There’s only doing it or not doing it, nothing else! Just you landing on the other side, alive, or me having to scrape your guts off the windshield of my x-wing so I can make my escape before Ben and Finn arrive to hunt me down.”

“Relax,” Rey interjects. “It’s going to be great. I just threw in  _ learning experience _ to make you feel better. The other day, Commander Omas did emphasize a lot on the importance of setting an example for the rest of the galaxy with what we do here; I assumed that kind of thinking includes this activity as well.”

“Well… Yeah, it does.”

Rey nods. “So we’re ready to go?”

Poe sighs.

“Look, Rey, I’m the first to admit I don’t  _ get _ the Force or the Jedi--”

“Right--”

“But I’m gonna need a little extra insurance here.”

Rey frowns. “What do you suggest?”

Poe grins. “We’re gonna have to have a word with Commander-in-Chief Organa.”

* * *

This skirmish is much more violent than the first one, between Ben and the UA-TT and the dozen stormtroopers.

It involves a lot more bloodshed, on the part of the First Order and the regular civilians of Mantooine.

Ben is forced back some, stepping into an open-air market, and though much of Mazul had been able to find shelter, there are only so many places to hide in an  _ open-air market, _ and the First Order does not hesitate to crush anyone who gets in their way. Puddles of blood so dark it looks black stain the yellow and orange sand, eyes stare unseeingly up at the pale blue sky from bodies littered with blaster holes. Ben ducks down behind an abandoned vegetable stall, and comes face to face with a child, no older than six, clinging onto the body of a woman. The child looks up at Ben, all wide blue eyes and black skin, sobbing her little heart out.

Ben’s heart twists in his chest with sympathy.

The loss of a parent hits so hard. Particularly, he’s sure, with young children.

“I’m so sorry,” Ben whispers, this young man and this little girl, in the middle of a place that should never have been a battlefield, yet is, because they live in an unkind galaxy.

The child’s eyes look from Ben’s face to his lightsaber, still ignited in his hand.

He deactivates it.

“Where can I take you?” Ben asks. “Where is your family?”

_ Please don’t say this dead woman is your only family, _ he thinks.

_ “Taraja,” _ the child says, and Ben nods, recalling the word as the name for a neighborhood not too far away in Mazul.

“Okay,” Ben says. “Wait here. I’ll get you home.”

The child hiccups in response.

Ben steels himself, and then straightens.

The market is ablaze, stalls having been hit by stray cannonfire and going up in spitting red flames, spewing noxious black smoke into the air. Ben coughs a little, feeling it settle in his lungs. He clambers over the counter of the stall, stepping onto the sand, gone ashy with the force of the battle that has stained it. The battle seems to have shifted again, most of the fighting leaving the market square. Ben looks around, peering through the smoke--

And there, on a nearby rooftop, a flash of black--

Ben’s hand flies to the holster on his leg, retrieving his DL-44 blaster pistol, and firing at the First Order sniper who’d been trying to sneak up on him amidst the smoke.

The sniper’s body keels over, dropping into the sand listlessly.

Ben lowers his blaster.

A slow clapping makes him turn around.

It’s the First Order Officer from earlier, flanked once more by stormtroopers. 

Ben wonders what happened to the stormtroopers he’d been so close to turning against the First Order with him earlier. Likely dead in the street, killed by their comrades for their moment of hesitation, moment of doubt.

Anger and pain rages through him.

_ Breathe, _ he thinks, reining it in.  _ Just breathe. _

“Well,” the First Order Officer drawls. “Never thought I’d see a Jedi fight with a  _ blaster.” _

The Officer is older than Ben, probably close to Leia’s age if not even older, with hair that is almost shockingly white under his cap, a brilliantly pure color next to the red, black, and yellow that has dominated this scene. There is a distinct possibility that this man once witnessed Luke Skywalker in battle, when Luke fought for the Alliance and the man fought alongside the Empire.

_ The past, _ Ben thinks,  _ is a mirror that shows the future. _

He knows what he sees when he dares look in the mirror of the present.

(Him; himself. His face, his eyes, his hands, his body. But dressed in expensive black robes, carrying a spitting red lightsaber, with a scar bisecting the right side of his face.)

To the Officer now, Ben shrugs a little, straightening to his full height.

“Until now,” he says, “You’ve never seen a Jedi who was also the son of Han Solo.”

“A criminal,” the Officer spits.

“Yes,” Ben says, because it’s true, and there’s no reason to deny it. Han Solo was a criminal. “And a good man.”

_ “You've a good heart, Ben. And it ain’t a weakness.” _

Han has been dead for almost five years.

Ben misses him every day.

He finds solace in his faith that Han has not left him, not fully. No one’s ever really gone.

No one.

The unmistakable sound of a comlink crinkling on makes everyone in the vicinity pause, checking on their own separate comlinks.

But it isn’t Ben’s, not Rose or Finn calling to find out where he’s gone.

And it isn’t any of the stormtroopers’.

It’s the First Order Officer’s, with a voice coming through it that Ben knows well.

“Captain Jamaane,” Evoleth Ren, formally Jedi Knight Hansa Rodan, calls. “Transmit your location.”

“With pleasure,” Jamaane says, holding eye contact with Ben, punching a button on his comlink. It starts flashing in quick intervals of red light. “Organa-Solo is here with me.”

“Good.”

Jamaane offers Ben a grin that is all white teeth. “The Knight of Ren is coming here to deal with you.”

“He isn’t the first one, and he won’t be the last,” Ben replies, calmly. “Are we going to warm up, or just keep chatting?”

Jamaane’s grin vanishes. He moves quickly, reaching for his blaster.

But Ben is quicker.

A Solo always shoots first.

Jamaane’s dead body collapses to the sand, and Ben dives out of the way as the stormtroopers retaliate.

* * *

Rey keeps her breaths even and calm, staring out at the plain in front of her.

She can’t see Poe or his x-wing from here, but she knows he’s coming. 

Ajan Kloss is primarily a jungle moon, dominated by humid jungles filled with tightly grown trees and vines, bird calls and bubbling rivers its most common soundtrack. But the planet also features more open spaces, lands of sprawling empty plains, for whatever reason the dirt here being too acidic or dry for any flora to grow. The Resistance has taken advantage of these empty spaces, using them to run drills for ground troops, as a place to keep broken ships in need of repair, and storage space for anything else they might not immediately need at base, such as clothes for arctic climates and crates of ammunition. The plain Rey stands in now has not been acquired for anything in particular, existing now as a purely empty space.

Jannah, at her side, looks dubious.

“Is this really going to work?” she asks, frowning deeply, the wind blowing her curly black hair around her eyes. She pushes it out of her face, impatiently.

“Yes,” Rey says. “Reach out, Jannah. Tell me what you can feel in the Force around me.”

She watches as Jannah closes her eyes, breathing evenly.

“You feel… certain,” Jannah says, slowly. “And the Force feels similarly calm.”

Rey nods. “Good. Exactly that.”

“Pardon me if I’m still a bit worried, Rey.”

“I understand your worry,” Rey replies. “It’s perfectly natural. Poe would say it’s smart, even.”

Jannah laughs. “I guess I just don’t quite get  _ why _ you’re doing this, exactly.”

“Force Jump,” Rey replies, and she sees clarity in Jannah’s eyes. “I’m getting really good at it, but I need something to truly compel me to give it my all. Being nearly mowed down by a starfighter is a very good example of that.”

“Maybe Poe was right, maybe we should wait for Master Organa-Solo.”

Rey snorts. “You don’t have to call him that. He’ll also respond to  _ Ben.” _

“I can’t help it,” Jannah says, clearly apologetic. She looks down, suddenly interested in her red sandals.

Rey’s humor vanishes as quickly as a shooting star.

“Of course,” she says, sympathetically. “I know you’re still fighting your brainwashing, and you’re doing brilliantly.” 

Jannah has been free from the First Order longer than Finn has, but the scars of the First Order run deep. Rey is sure it also does not help that Ben uncannily  _ feels _ to Jannah like Kylo Ren does; inevitable, due to being his identical twin.

“I suppose if we were following the more rigid rules of the Old Jedi Order, then we’d all be calling him Master Organa-Solo, and he’d be calling me a Knight and you a Padawan,” Rey muses. “But we aren’t. He wants the rest of us Jedi to call him Ben because he’s trying to create a more equal Order, with openness and compassion and thoughtfulness.”

Three things that describe Ben himself perfectly.

“And it’s important too that you feel as far away from the stormtrooper corps as possible,” Rey finishes. “Titles and formal uniforms wouldn’t create that environment for you.”

Jannah raises one eyebrow. “I think Finn would riot if Ben said we are to start dressing like the Old Jedi did.”

“Forget Finn.  _ I _ would riot.”

She laughs, a loud sound that echoes around the plain. “Well, then we’d have a very short uprising on our hands. Ben would cave immediately to you.”

“He knows how to pick his battles,” Rey says, smiling.

Both women still, turning to look at the horizon. They’ve both sensed the x-wing starfighter headed their way, feeling it in the Force before the noise of its engines could reach them.

Rey grins at Jannah. “Very good.”

“I’m going to wait over there,” Jannah says, gesturing vaguely to the side.  _ “Way _ over there. Do you have any last words for Ben, if you don’t make the jump?”

Jannah is mostly kidding, but there’s a real tone of worry to her voice. She is still quite new to the Force, and Rey is sure this attempt by her is truly straining Jannah’s credulity.

“He knows I love him,” Rey says, “But I guess make sure he doesn’t kill Poe?”

“Roger that.”

Jannah jogs away, repeatedly glancing back, as if to see if Rey has had a sudden change of heart, or a sudden realization of her madness here, and is following. But Rey remains still, gaze locked ahead of her, at the x-wing that is rapidly coming closer.

Her fingers itch to go for the dual-bladed lightsaber hanging at her waist.

But even worse than failing to make this jump would be to destroy Poe’s x-wing.

She’d never hear the end of it.

Instead, she twists on the spot, turning her back to the ship approaching her at high speed, and waits.

* * *

_ “Ben! Where are you?” _

“Not in the industrial district anymore,” Ben grunts, turning quickly and deflecting the volley of blaster fire with his lightsaber before it can strike him. “There are a few squadrons with me. They’re pinning me down.”

_ “Kriff. I’ll send a team--” _

“Don’t,” Ben says, interrupting Rose before she can put out the order. “They’re doing it by design. Evoleth Ren is here.”

_ “What!? Then, you need--” _

“Look, it isn’t a big deal,” Ben replies, and somehow Rose’s squawk of disbelief is audible over the raging battle going on. Ben cuts a swift deflecting slash with his blade, catching a blaster bolt and swatting it aside, advancing and cutting down the stormtrooper who’d shot it.

_ “Oh, it is definitely a big deal! A Knight of Ren--” _

“I was going to have to deal with him sooner rather than later,” Ben says, darkly. “Malastare wasn’t very long ago. He hasn’t forgotten. As I haven’t.”

Rose quiets, understanding either Ben’s point or the grief in his voice. Knowing her, probably both.

_ “Ben…” _

“Keep an eye on Finn,” Ben continues. “Have you breached the facility yet?”

_ “He’s deep inside it already.” _

Ben allows himself a small smile. He keeps his moves close to his body, avoiding any sweeps or lunges, as he is forced to back into an alley to get away from the more rabid violence happening in the streets in front of him.

“Good,” Ben says. “If you get a chance to talk to him, remind him that he should avoid using  _ en su ma--” _

_ “En su… What, now?” _

“A cartwheel!” Ben says, yelling now as a 125-Z treadspeeder bike zooms into the scene, the stormtrooper driving it firing chaotically with one hand while guiding the machine through the streets. Ben easily deflects the bolt sent his way, sending it directly back to the driver, who immediately crashes into a building.

_ “Tell Finn to avoid cartwheeling. Got it.” _

“His shoulder’s still kriffed up from Sullust, I told him to take it easy, but he was determined to tag along--”

_ “Well, yeah, because the mission is to unhinge the stormtrooper program facility here--” _

“I know that--”

He breaks off, abruptly stilling.

_ “Ben?” _ Rose calls, but he presses the side button on his comlink, and she goes silent.

Ben straightens his shoulders, and turns around.

A man has arrived on the street. He’s a little younger than Ben and almost as tall, with tawny-colored eyes and pale skin, dressed head-to-toe in heavy black robes. As Ben watches, he pulls the hood of his cloak back, revealing closely cropped light brown hair.

The man’s lip curls.

“Well,” he says, in a low voice laced with a faint Outer Rim accent. “I see our intelligence is true. You really don’t dress like a Jedi.”

“Neither do you,” Ben replies.

“I renounced the Jedi Way nearly ten years ago,” Evoleth Ren spits.

“You’d be welcomed back if you wished.”

“The only reason I’d come back is to  _ kill the remaining Jedi.” _

Ben nods, unsurprised. “I know. But I want to make sure you understand you have the choice.”

“How  _ noble,” _ Evoleth says. “That the murderer of my lover wishes that I know he might forgive me.”

Evoleth’s words are scabbed and angry, raised like thick scars. They cut Ben deeply.

“I didn’t want to do it,” Ben says, quietly. “Saffron left me no choice--”

“That wasn’t her name!”

“Qirin Ren, then,” Ben says, referring to the name Saffron took when she left Luke’s Jedi Order and became a Knight of Ren. “She was about to strike a killing blow on one of my Knights. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to save him.”

He’s somewhat aware that Evoleth has brought another new squadron of stormtroopers. Even more aware that though these stormtroopers carry blasters, that none of them have so much as raised them at Ben. They’re poised to, waiting for a word from Evoleth here. In the meantime, they’ve settled for surrounding Ben on all sides, standing in a circle, the only remaining space between Ben and Evoleth.

A perfect dueling ground, with a perimeter ensuring Ben can’t flee.

Ben tightens his grip on his lightsaber.

“I loved her too, you know,” Ben says, looking into Evoleth’s hate-filled eyes. “She was one of my closest friends when we were children. One spring, she picked the violets that grew in that patch under the front steps of her hut and braided them into my hair. Do you remember that?”

Ben remembers it clearly.

The brilliant, warm sun of Devaron. The pale, cloudless sky. Saffron’s alabaster, Palliduvan skin pinking in the sunlight. Her long, bony fingers, carefully weaving through Ben’s thick dark hair, tying buds and leaves into the tresses.

It contrasts horrifically with the last time Ben saw Saffron, when her fingers were covered in the blood of the Resistance soldiers she’d clawed, when her green eyes were so dark they were practically black in her white skin.

The way her mouth formed that  _ oh _ shape when Ben’s lightsaber sank into her chest.

He is not proud of it.

He hated doing it.

But it was her or Finn, and he was always going to choose Finn.

He will carry her death in his heart forever.

“A strange way to show your  _ love,” _ Evoleth snarls, and Ben can only feel sympathy for him, understanding it is heartbreak manifesting as rage. 

“For what it’s worth,” Ben says, “I am truly sorry for your loss.”

“Not yet, but you will be,” Evoleth hisses. “Once I kill you, I will kill the Jedi Knight you love so much. The Scavenger girl. The Jedi From the Wastelands.  _ Rey of Nowhere.” _

Ben allows himself to feel a pang of intense fear at the thought of Rey dying. It’s very high up on the list of things he fears and dreads the most, and if he spends too long thinking about it, he’ll only end up in a neverending downward spiral of imagined possibilities. Major Kalonia has told him that this is an instance of his way of  _ negative and obsessive thinking, _ that he needs to learn to not be so paranoid about everything. Rey has told him he needs new hobbies.

“Rey’s reputation is really preceding her,” Ben says now. “She’s most fond of  _ Rey of Nowhere, _ if anyone in the First Order was wondering. It was bestowed on her by Luke.”

Evoleth stiffens, just for a moment. Ben notices it all the same.

He understands why.

“I know Luke made a lot of mistakes,” Ben murmurs. “And he knew it, too. Luke made some choices I fully disagree with, choices I don’t understand, choices I despise. The Jedi Order I’m working to build now is one that’s determined to break the cycle and not make the same mistakes. I don’t know if that will mean anything to you now. But I hope it might bring you a tiny bit of peace.”

Evoleth retrieves his lightsaber from his belt. A beam of red slashes through the still air. Ben is entirely unsurprised by the sight of it.

But he still feels sad.

The red lightsaber is a visual reminder of how much was lost to get them both here. Former classmates, now turned enemy combatants.

“I’m sorry,” Ben says. “I’m sorry that of the infinite universes that exist, that we ended up in this one, where you fell to the Dark Side and I killed Saffron. I’m sorry things have turned out like this, Hansa.”

Evoleth--who in many ways will always be Hansa, who in many ways is still Hansa--growls.

“Call me Evoleth Ren, Jedi _ scum,” _ he says.

He raises his lightsaber, holding the hilt in both hands, parallel to his chest. The opening stance of Ataru.

Ben nods.

“Well,” Ben says, and he moves into his preferred opening stance for Niman, lifting his lightsaber to the height of his head in a two-handed grip, angling it upwards and slightly in, and putting his right foot forward. “In that case, please call me _Jedi Master_ scum, Evoleth.”

As expected, this causes Evoleth to launch his attack.

Ben meets him in the middle.

* * *

Rey can hear the x-wing starfighter, its engines revving.

Even more clearly, she can  _ feel _ Poe’s anxiety and fear.

It is pretty amazing he agreed to this. Leia’s deadpan, droll “Okay” when he’d told her Rey’s idea must have broken the logic processors in his brain. He’s probably been walking around a bit dazed ever since.

Rey focuses.

She crouches, and then takes off in a sprint, her back still to the rapidly approaching ship.

Jannah’s worry intensifies, as the ship comes closer and closer to Rey.

_ Breathe, _ Rey thinks, running over the hard dirt of Ajan Kloss.  _ Just breathe. _

The x-wing is so close, she can feel the heat of its engines against her back, and--

Rey leaps.

She flings herself up into the sky, pale blue with only a few scattered clouds. She twists as she soars, her legs splaying, her spine curving, her body moving in a complete arc. As Rey moves, it feels like the rest of the world slows, until she can see everything so clearly, from Jannah’s awestruck face a short distance away, to the minute serial numbers on the wing of Poe’s starfighter. Wind whips through her hair, and she laughs, closing her eyes, utterly exhilarated.

She touches down on the earth, gently, like stepping out of bed in the morning.

Rey grins.

“That was incredible!” Jannah yells, racing to Rey, her sandals stirring up dirt as she runs. Her hair has been flattened to the side, likely due to the way Jannah was clutching her head in her hands in fear she was about to witness a calamitous incident. She skids to a stop at Rey’s side, beaming.

Ahead of them, the starfighter has landed. They watch as the cockpit latch lifts, and Poe rises to his feet, standing in his seat.

“You were right,” Poe shouts. “That did look pretty amazing.”

He jumps down from his ship, walking to them.

“I cheated a little,” Rey tells Jannah in an aside, before Poe can hear them. “I had to go a little higher than I planned. So that wasn’t just Force Jump, I had to incorporate Inertia as well.”

“That’s fair.”

“Now that you’ve seen what it looks like, can you think of  _ why _ a Jedi might need to jump like that?”

Poe reaches them, watching as Jannah frowns in thought.

“If you’re trying to actually take down a ship flying over you?” Jannah suggests.

Rey nods. “Definitely. It’s also good when you’re fighting with Form IV.”

Jannah’s eyes clear. “Ataru. Right. Since it’s so acrobatic. Finn and I have been practicing the Hawk-Bat Swoop.”

“Even with Finn’s bad shoulder?”

“He says it’s fine.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “He  _ would. _ Well, he’d better not come to me when he kriffs up his shoulder doing cartwheels and somersaults.”

“Hey now,” Poe interjects. “You owe me, Rey. If Finn asks you to fix his shoulder, then you have to do it. If not for him, then for me.”

“Yeah, okay,” Rey agrees. “Actually, there is something else I’d like your help with.”

Jannah snorts, while Poe groans, dragging his hands down his face quite melodramatically.

“No, it’s a good thing!” Rey interjects before he can launch into a rant. “You’ll like it, I promise.”

“Another Jedi thing--”

“Not even a little. I have to bake a cake.”

Poe looks almost as surprised as when she’d first shared her wish to jump over his starfighter using nothing but the Force. Jannah, on the other hand, nods, knowingly.

“Amani Naberrie sent me a recipe for a cake that I haven’t tried to make before,” Rey continues. “So I’d like some company while I work on it. You’ll get first dibs on a slice, I promise.”

“I better get  _ two _ slices.”

“I think I can manage that.”

They shake on it. Jannah studies them, deeply amused.

“Whenever I dreamt of the Resistance,” she says, “I never in a million years imagined this.”

“Our general badassery?” Poe asks.

“Our interest in baking?” Rey guesses.

Jannah smiles.

“Friendship,” she says. “How obvious and clear it is that you all adore each other.”

Rey and Poe smile back at her. Poe steps forward, wrapping his arms around both women’s shoulders. Jannah is only a tiny bit shorter than Rey, and Rey is only a little shorter than Poe, so it’s a bit of a stretch, but he manages it.

“Ladies,” he declares. “Let’s go bake a cake.”

* * *

Hansa’s preferred lightsaber Form had always been Ataru. Ataru is one of the more aggressive Forms, focusing on attack and agility, with the idea that every single part of you can become a weapon if moved right. When used proficiently, the Ataru user practically becomes a blur of movement, seemingly attacking from every angle and direction.

Ben knows he shouldn’t be surprised that Hansa carried his fighting preference with him into his second life as a Knight of Ren.

Ben initially fights with Niman, which allows him to be versatile, offering a comparatively gentle rebuke to Evoleth’s ferocious moves.

Evoleth leaps into the air, spinning, and Ben swats at his blade, following up with a pushing slash that sends Evoleth flying away, landing hard in the sand. Ben does not give him a chance to recover, instead hurrying up to him and matching Evoleth’s retaliating stab. Evoleth jumps to his feet, quite gracefully, and Ben is forced out of Niman as Evoleth keeps him close, the two of them walking swiftly, Evoleth stepping forward and Ben stepping back, moving in perfect sync.

And then Evoleth changes tack, shifting into an even quicker blur of movement so he appears to be wielding several red blades at once; the Saber Swarm. Ben is instantly on the defensive, doing all he can to block the blows.

“Fight back,” Evoleth snarls. “Go on the offensive, I know you can--”

Ben twists on the spot, holding his lightsaber with one hand to catch Evoleth’s, using his other hand to telekinetically throw Evoleth away, sending him into a wall.

_ “No,” _ Evoleth yells, as the stormtroopers move to attack Ben. “Stay back! He’s mine.”

“Evoleth,” Ben says, deeply loathing the name but knowing it’s necessary to keep Evoleth calm in this rapidly escalating situation. “This isn’t going to end well.”

“That’s the point,  _ murglak.” _

“Ouch,” Ben says, calmly. In terms of insults that have been used to describe him,  _ murglak _ is relatively tame.

Evoleth gets to his feet, panting. He throws his black cloak off, letting it pool in the sand carelessly.

“Get  _ angry, _ Ben,” he spits, and the use of Ben’s first name is the first thing he’s said all day that surprises Ben. “I know you’re angry.”

“Why would I be angry?” Ben asks, somewhat nonplussed.

“Because you are full of grief,” Evoleth says. “And there are only two avenues to pursue grief: anger or melancholy. And melancholy has no place on a battlefield. If you wish to survive, to lead your New Jedi Order, then you must embrace your anger.”

“And I have.”

_ “Show me. _ I have fought Kylo Ren. I know your rage.” Evoleth grins, all teeth. “Do you know what they call you? Civilians, citizens of the galaxy? Have you heard the stories? They call you  _ The Righteous Man.” _

Ben doesn’t blink. He’s heard the title before.

“What would they think,” Evoleth wonders, “if they knew how  _ angry _ you are?”

“My anger is different from my brother’s,” Ben says. “His anger rules him. Mine does not.”

For a moment, Evoleth is still, just breathing. 

“You are weaker than him for that, then,” Evoleth decides. “Rage gives you strength. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power.”

Ben stills, his lightsaber lowering, his arm suddenly weak.

“The Code of the Sith,” he breathes, stunned. “Is this the new way of the Knights of Ren?”

Rey had told Ben, five years earlier, after her interaction with Kylo on Snoke’s dreadnought, that he had chosen to reject the ways of the Jedi  _ and _ the Sith. Ben had taken him at his word.

If Kylo has decided now to embrace the Sith Way…

Then Ben has a  _ lot _ of work to do.

All of the Jedi do.

“The universe is so big,” Evoleth says, darkly. “Maybe you should think about exploring it, once in a while.”

Nothing Evoleth has said, including his hate-filled comments regarding Saffron’s death and his threat towards Rey, have scared Ben like this.

It is one thing to know the Knights of Ren are out there, fighting and getting stronger.

It is another thing to know they might not be doing it alone.

His eyes have changed, Ben realizes. That familiar tawny Ben grew up looking into, whether it was seen across from him while meditating, while sparring, while eating meals together; there is a hint of red at the edges of Evoleth’s irises now.

“Okay,” Ben says, quietly. His hand slides to his comlink on his belt, pressing a button. It begins to flash in even intervals of light. “Let’s fight.”

Ben moves into a one-handed high guard, holding his lightsaber horizontally above his head, pointing it to the side. His body is half-twisted, his left hand splayed across and downward.

The opening stance for Form VII, Juyo. A Form that was once described as a “Sith Form” by one of the most recent Sith lords, Darth Sidious.

A Form that Ben Organa-Solo is most proficient in.

Evoleth’s grin is all teeth.

“That’s more like it,” he declares, and rushes to Ben.

Ben meets him immediately, giving himself into the movement, moving with malignant grace.

* * *

Rey fidgets on her knees, staring impatiently into the bowels of the small industrial oven she has been given permission to use. The light inside is dim; the oven is secondhand, donated by some well-wishing Resistance sympathizer keen to give to the cause without sacrificing their life to do so. It’s hard for her to see how well the cake is rising inside.

She sighs, reaching up to the counter above her for her cup of Gatalentan tea.

“What are we making?”

Rey turns, smiling, to see Commander-in-Chief Leia Organa herself, arms crossed over her chest, one eyebrow raised pointedly. Leia is dressed in her typical daily attire of gray trousers and white blouse, her hair (more gray these days than brown) coiled neatly at the top of her head.

“Hopefully, a Naboo Cream Cake,” Rey says, getting to her feet. She gives Leia the datapad containing the recipe, along with the long note from Amani Naberrie that accompanied it.

“Oh, how is my cousin?” Leia asks, seeing this.

Amani is technically something like Leia’s first cousin, once removed, or something similarly abstract. Amani’s mother is Ryoo Naberrie, the daughter of Sola, Leia’s mother’s sister. Rey had met Amani five years earlier, when the Resistance had sought shelter in Varykino, the home of the Naberrie Family’s lake estate. They’ve kept in sporadic touch ever since.

“She’s well,” Rey replies. “She’s studying painting and fine art at the University of Theed.”

“Lovely,” Leia murmurs. She sets the datapad aside, eyeing Rey’s flour-stained face and messy hair. “You’ve had a hell of a day, I see.”

Rey shrugs. “Not so bad. How much time do we have? Have they left Mantooine yet?”

Leia’s genteel warmth abruptly shutters, turning into something akin to anxiety. She never looks more like her son than when she’s worried, Rey notes.

“Rose’s last transmission was some time ago,” Leia says, speaking diplomatically. “They’d just breached the facility with a team led by Finn, with Rose’s planning to follow up. Ben was not with either of them.”

Rey’s cheerful expression falls. “Where is he?”

“Rose said that… Evoleth Ren is also on Mantooine.”

Rey closes her eyes.

Evoleth is the Knight of Ren most desperate to kill Ben.

“I should’ve gone with him,” she murmurs.

Leia shakes her head. “It wasn’t your call.”

No; it had been Ben’s  _ stupid _ call.

“Besides,” Leia continues. “Don’t you have an apprentice to train?”

“She’s practicing her Ataru stances,” Rey replies. “She wasn’t as interested in baking a cake as Poe and I were.”

“Jannah takes her studies very seriously.”

“Yeah,” Rey replies, smiling now. “Ben’s been a bad influence on her.”

Leia laughs, and Rey counts it as a win. The older woman walks to her, taking Rey’s hand in hers.

“He’ll be fine,” she says.

“I know,” Rey says, nodding. “It’ll take a toll on him, though. No matter who wins their fight. Ben feels so guilty for what happened with Qirin Ren.”

“Yeah, well,” Leia shrugs. “Ben always had too much heart. Takes after his father in that way.”

“You must be thinking about him a lot, today of all days.”

“I think of him always,” Leia says, quietly, her heartbreak coating her words. Rey squeezes her hand, and Leia seems to snap out of her melancholy, rolling her shoulders back.

“There’s no point in you spending the next hour staring into an oven,” she declares. “Come with me. I’ll braid your hair for the occasion.”

Rey snorts. “You always make it sound like you’re doing  _ me _ a favor, rather than doing it for your own pleasure--”

“It isn’t my fault I only had boys who refused to grow their hair past their shoulders,” Leia interrupts, but she’s smiling. “You are by far the closest thing I have ever, and will ever, have to a daughter, Rey. Indulge an old woman.”

It is not the first time Leia has told Rey she is like a daughter to her, but it will never not fill Rey with fierce joy.

She may have been abandoned by her birth family, but she has found a true family with the Resistance.

“Yes, Commander.”

* * *

The thing about Juyo is that it relies on its wielder’s fear. It is a lightsaber Form built on fear, on emotion and passion and pain. Ben grew up knowing he was too sensitive, particularly when compared to his brother, who traded sensitivity for brute strength, for arrogance. It was Ben who internalized everything; Ben who “lived more in his own head than the other apprentices”, as Luke Skywalker once put it.

Due to this, Ben is a Master of Juyo.

It’s a perfect place for him to express the emotions that run ragged through him, funneling into the concept that has long made Juyo unattractive and difficult to the typical Jedi or other Force user. 

As Evoleth said:  _ Through passion, I gain strength. _

A Sith adage.

Also: something that would describe Ben’s journey in the Force, a philosophy he has brought with him as he shapes the New Jedi Order. The idea that it is emotion and passion that can ground someone, rather than make them undone.

With passion, with Juyo: Ben Organa-Solo is lethal, and vicious, and powerful.

It takes just minutes for Evoleth to fall.

Ben steps into  _ Vornskr’s Ferocity, _ attacking Evoleth with such brutality and raw strength that Evoleth is forced to collapse under the rabid onslaught of blows. Ben spins on the spot, forcing Evoleth to let his lightsaber go; the hilt tumbles through the air, and Ben’s lightsaber slices it in half with a quick bit of  _ sun djem. _

Both men look at the broken lightsaber in the sand, the red crystal now several pieces of shiny rock.

Evoleth is gasping, exhausted.

Ben’s breaths are even, like he’s just been on a light jog.

He looks at the Knight of Ren.

“You were right,” Evoleth says, something calculating darkening his eyes. “Your anger is different from Kylo Ren’s. You’re  _ angrier.” _

“I have a place to put mine,” Ben replies. “Bail does not.”

Evoleth raises an eyebrow. “You call him by that name? After all this time, still?”

“I am my brother’s keeper,” Ben murmurs.

_ You and me, _ whispers his voice; and it could be his own, or his identical twin’s. There is no way to know from only an audible memory.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the stormtroopers raising their blasters. Remaining still, Ben reaches out into the Force, searching for that haze of light, that late evening bonfire. He finds it, and breathes; they’re close.

“Evoleth,” Ben says. “When you see my brother, could you pass on a message to him for me? I would do it myself, but I haven’t seen him for five years, and he’s awfully hard to find.”

He has not seen Bail, face-to-face, since that fateful evening on Ahch-To, when Ben learned that Bail and Rey had had their minds connected by Snoke. For a brief moment, as Ben stood in numb shock in Rey’s hut, he’d looked over a fire and stared at his identical twin, whose face was scarred by the lightsaber that had once belonged to their grandfather and uncle. For one, wonderful second, Bail stared at Ben with something akin to hope, and stretched out his arm, reaching for him.

And then Luke tore it down.

Ben has not seen his mirror ever since.

He is not entirely sure how this is possible; sometimes, he wonders if Bail is  _ avoiding _ him.

“What is it?” Evoleth asks, and Ben knows he’s trying so hard to be casual, but is really quite curious as to what Ben could possibly have to say to Kylo Ren.

Shadows suddenly darken the street, and the stormtroopers turn, staring as two massive SP.9 Anti-Infantry Artillery Vehicles roll into the vicinity, twin fast-firing laser cannons with unlimited ammunition pointing at the group in the middle of the road: Ben, Evoleth, and the stormtroopers. Following these two large pieces of machinery are the more comforting rumbles of a scout speeder.

Ben turns away from this new audience, to look at Evoleth, who’s still splayed on the ground.

“When you see Kylo Ren,” Ben says, “Please tell him that his brother wishes him a happy birthday.”

And then Ben closes his eyes, slipping into  _ tutaminis,  _ as the SP.9’s immediately start their heavy barrage of firing lasers. He can feel the lasers, their heat and their power, but he diffuses the energy before it can hit him.

Evoleth, and the stormtroopers, are not as lucky. They run, shouting and yelling, away from the onslaught.

Ben runs in the other direction, slipping through the battle, to the scout speeder on the other side.

Rose sits in the driver’s seat, Finn in the passenger’s seat.

“Oh, good,” Rose says. “You’re alive.”

“Told you he’d make it,” Finn says.

Ben clambers into the backseat of the speeder, powering down his lightsaber.

Rose drives them away from the battle, moving in the direction of the Mazul Spaceport, where the  _ Millennium Falcon _ awaits, Chewbacca and a handful of other Resistance soldiers guarding it and the rest of the ships the Resistance took to get to Mantooine. They pass by other squads of soldiers, all of whom wave at the speeder, before they reach the market square.

“Stop here,” Ben says, and Rose slows.

He jumps out of the idling speeder, ignoring Rose and Finn’s calls of confusion and protest, running to the vegetable stand. Ben leans over the dilapidated wall.

The girl is still there, arms curled around her knees. She looks up at Ben with tear-heavy eyes.

“Hi,” Ben says. “It’s me again. Can I take you home now?”

The girl blinks.

And then she raises her arms, allowing Ben to bend down, and scoop her up.

As he carries her out of the demolished market square, the body of her fallen mother behind them, Ben hears his father’s voice in his head, for the second time that day.

_ “You’ve a good heart, Ben. And it ain’t a weakness.” _

Today is Ben’s thirtieth birthday.

Han has been dead for almost five years.

But Ben knows that his father has never left him. Not really.

Just as well as he knows that Han is proud of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp we are in the Worst Timeline so I have spent a lot of time obsessing over writing this story rather than anything I would see in the news. I hope it works as a distraction for you, too.
> 
> Some housekeeping:
> 
> -Mantooine and the Atrivis Sector Force were a Big Deal in the Old EU and the Alliance. Mantooine as a desert world was made up by me; the creation of a neighborhood called Taraja in my made up capital of Mazul is a shoutout to the Cassian Andor Nonsense and an homage to a character from GRAY AREAS.
> 
> -Unlike the first two stories in this series, this story is going almost FULL AU. So far, I'm borrowing characters and locations but virtually nothing of the plot of THE RISE OF SKYWALKER. No Rey Palpatine, no Sith Wayfinders, no mysterious daggar, no Final Order, no Palpatine, period.
> 
> -This story is gonna be stupid long, longer even than THAT LOOKING-GLASS ACHE, I think. With that in mind, I probably won't post ~as often~ but I am trying my best.
> 
> -We are lifting heavily from the Old EU! Yay!
> 
> -This story is going to get Dark. and grim. and sad. because it must. But there will be a happy (and SATISFYING!) ending, I promise.


	2. This Is Why We Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A combination of two things that are yours. That past, and… This future. Something you can carry and wear; a constant reminder of both.”

Rey is putting the finishing touches on the cake when she feels him.

Like a beacon of pure, sustaining sunlight, Ben’s presence washes over her. He is sheer warmth, something kind, something sustaining, a sun that Rey wishes to remain close to, to never be separated from. She will never not reach out for him.

She straightens, as the unmistakable, familiar sound of a Corellian YT-1300 freighter lands on the tarmac just past the base.

Jannah peeks into the cave. “How’s it looking?”

“Well, it isn’t pretty,” Rey says. “But not _too_ shabby for someone who hasn’t had a lot of baking practice.”

The Naboo Cream Cake is definitely misshapen; Amani had sent a picture of what it was meant to look like, and this isn’t it. The ideal cake is perfectly round, its layers stacked neatly on top of each other in three lovely tiers. Rey’s cake is lopsided, threatening to topple over with the slightest nudge, its cream closer to tan than white.

She still isn’t sure where she went wrong.

“Good effort,” Jannah says, diplomatically. Rey laughs.

She tucks the cake into a small crevice, away from the edge of the counter, and hurriedly wipes her frosting-stained hands with a towel. Voices can be heard outside the cave, other Resistance members hurrying out to meet the team fresh from Mantooine.

Rey loops her arm through Jannah’s.

“Let’s go say hello,” she says, and the two of them follow the tide to the tarmac.

* * *

_“You smell like a nerf,”_ Chewbacca says.

“That’s exactly what I was going for,” Ben mumbles, and Chewbacca roars his laughter. “Hey, hey, careful!”

 _“Sorry, Ben_ Kkata,” Chewbacca replies, focusing back on the bacta he’s applying to Ben’s fingers. Ben hadn’t realized he’d actually been burned by some of the lasers fired in that last brush with the SP.9’s, only figuring it out when the little girl--Sauda, according to her father--had squeezed his hand to tell him they’d reached her home. His skin is raised and raw, a blemished pink.

Normally, Ben would either heal himself or ask Finn to do it. But Ben is exhausted, wrung out from both the duel with Evoleth and the revelations flung his way; and Finn is similarly tired, his shoulder still a little sore.

“We’ve landed,” Rose hollers from the cockpit.

“Thanks,” Ben yells back.

Even if Ben had somehow missed the tell-tale feel of the _Falcon_ settling onto the tarmac of Ajan Kloss, the brilliant starlight stretching to him in the Force would have alerted him. Rey is near.

He hasn’t seen her in over three weeks, not since he, Finn, Rose, and a full squadron departed for the Atrivis Sector, to meet with the Atrivis Sector Resistance Force as envoys for the Resistance’s command team. They’d visited with the main leaders on Fest, gone to Generis to spy on the First Order movements there (negligible, likely just investigating what remained of the long ago Imperial outpost), met with a brand new Resistance group in the forests of Fedje, and then to Mantooine, in order to take down the stormtrooper training outpost on the desert world. It’s been a long three weeks, and Ben is tired.

There is no such thing as a time for rest during a war, but Ben is hopeful he can spend at least a week here on Ajan Kloss, with the Jedi he is meant to be guiding.

Chewbacca carefully wraps clean bandages around Ben’s fingers, gently patting the back of his hand to signal he’s done.

 _“You all right?”_ Chewbacca asks.

Ben shakes his head. “Just tired.”

 _“War is a marathon,”_ Chewbacca says, sagely. _“Not a sprint. Pace yourself. It would not do any of us good for the last Jedi Master to run himself ragged.”_

“How did you relax during the Civil War?” Ben asks, genuinely curious.

Outside, he can hear Jade Squadron, the squadron that had gone to the Atrivis Sector alongside the _Millennium Falcon,_ landing on the tarmac. The chatter and cacophony grows louder, but for a moment, it is just Ben and Chewbacca in the _Falcon,_ and the ghost of the man they both loved.

 _“Your father and I would have a drink or two,”_ Chewbacca says, emphasizing the _two_ part, and Ben snorts, because _two_ is absolutely code for way more, _“And play a game, or watch a holovid, or fix the_ Falcon, _or just look at the stars. Things we would have liked to be doing if we weren’t caught up in the war.”_

Ben nods. “I suppose it tracks, then, that I’ll be spending my free time studying with the Jedi.”

Chewbacca arches an eyebrow. _“Is that what you would be doing if you weren’t in this war?”_

Ben looks at him. Chewbacca blinks back, composed.

“I think… a lot of things about my life would be different if I wasn’t in this war,” Ben says, quietly. “And I don’t think anything beneficial can come out of me dwelling on those things.”

Chewbacca’s hand, on his shoulder, suddenly feels heavy.

It is Ben’s thirtieth birthday. This means it is also Kylo Ren’s thirtieth birthday.

Ben has been separated from Bail for over ten years.

He thinks he will go insane if he spends any extended amount of time imagining what those years might have been like if Bail had not fallen to the Dark Side. He thinks it will only send him down another, familiar, spiral of grief.

 _“Come,”_ Chewbacca says. _“Go see_ Atti-Leia _and_ Ji-Rey.”

* * *

Ben is, naturally, the last one off the _Millennium Falcon._

Rey’s eyes zero in on him, on the way he’s fumbling with bandages wrapped around the fingers of his left hand, on the way his skin is a tad darker than when she last saw him, likely due to the sunnier planets of the Atrivis Sector. His hair, she notes, looks much the same. As of late, Ben has been keeping his hair shorter than she’s ever seen him keep it, not quite managing to cover his ears. He tells people it’s because he’s tired of brushing his hair out of his eyes all the time, but Rey knows it’s because the last intel they got from someone who’d witnessed Kylo Ren in person had noted his hair was quite long, nearly brushing his shoulders.

It shouldn’t really matter to her how long or short Ben wears his hair. But it does matter to her. Deeply.

And not only because she wishes it was a choice he made that wasn’t inspired by him constantly being mistaken for Kylo Ren by the vast majority of the galaxy’s inhabitants. As it turns out, Bail taking off the mask has been much more of an issue for Ben than for Bail.

It’s completely understandable that someone would look at Ben and think he was Kylo Ren, but Rey knows how much it bothers him.

But this isn’t the main reason it matters to her that Ben wears his hair so short these days.

It matters to Rey because the last time she saw Ben with his hair this short was in a vision, one she experienced when she was fully open inside the Force, while building her lightsaber.

She is jostled by a passing soldier, snapping out of her dazed melancholy.

It is a day of celebration and reunion. She can store her fear and pain for tomorrow.

At least Ben continues to dress completely differently from his twin. While Kylo still prefers tunics and cloaks, Ben dresses like a spacer, in casual clothes. The dark jacket he’s currently wearing looks rather battered, the white shirt underneath stained with sweat and smoke, the black trousers dusted with sand. When he turns his head, she catches a glimpse of gold at his throat; the lucky die, a gift from Han, that Ben never takes off.

Ben’s eyes find hers.

She grins, watching as his smile matches hers.

He walks through the crowd between them quite smoothly, his height giving him an easier way of moving around than just about anyone else. Every now and then he’s forced to look away from her, as a soldier or tech or pilot touches his arm in greeting, distracting him; but he always looks back up, and immediately locates her.

It feels like a year before he’s in front of her. For a moment, he just stands there, looking at her.

“You changed your hair,” he comments.

Rey nods, her hand reaching up to touch the ornate hairstyle Leia had inflicted on her. Leia had coiled the sides of her hair into two separate braids, tying them back so they flow down with the rest of Rey’s hair. Every time Leia manages to create any kind of design with her hair, Rey is always surprised to find out exactly how _much_ hair she has.

“Your mum did it,” Rey says, unnecessarily.

“It’s an Alderaanian style,” Ben says. “Did she tell you why she picked it?”

Rey frowns. It had not occurred to her to ask.

Ben steps close to her, wrapping one hand around the back of her neck, while catching her hand with his free one.

“It looks nice,” he says, leaning down, “And--”

She jumps up on her toes, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, and yanking him down so she can kiss him, stopping him mid sentence. He laughs against her mouth, but returns her kiss with equal enthusiasm, dropping her hand to wrap his arm around her waist, curving his spine to get closer to her.

 _I missed you,_ Rey thinks, even though it hasn’t been very long at all since she last saw him.

By the way he presses closer, she thinks the feeling is mutual.

They part after a minute or so, and Ben rests his forehead against hers.

“Happy birthday,” Rey breathes, and she catches his dimpled smile.

“Thank you,” he replies.

She would like to stay forever in this moment, forever in this space where it is just Ben and her, and there is no war, no evil, no pain, no loss anywhere to be found.

Unfortunately, this is not the universe they live in.

They part, going to greet others, moving in different directions. But their hands linger, fingers brushing, until they absolutely have to let go.

* * *

“Master Orga--” Jannah sighs, deeply, and rolls her shoulders. _“Ben.”_

“Hi, Jannah,” Ben replies, bending to hug her. She hugs him back, her hair flattening against the side of his head.

“I’ve been working on Ataru stances,” Jannah says, when they’ve both straightened. “And I’ve been running the training course every morning. Rey sometimes runs it with me, but lately she’s taken to waiting for me at some point on the course, to see if I can sense her in the Force before I see her, and I’ve been getting pretty good at it--”

“Jannah,” Ben interrupts, gently. “How are you?”

Jannah shrugs, smiling with a hint of embarrassment. “I’m well.”

“Are you actually doing well, or are you just saying that because you think it’s what I want to hear?”

“Both,” Jannah replies, and then laughs at his look of disbelief. Ben smiles back.

“I am glad to hear you’ve been training,” he says. “I’ve never doubted your devotion and eagerness to become a Jedi, and it’s wonderful to hear you talk about what you’re working on. But it’s just as important to me that you’re happy here.”

“I am,” Jannah says, and the firmness in her voice immediately eases him.

He has never doubted Jannah’s determination and desire to be a Jedi, not once since he first met Jannah, following Rey running up to him after a mission she’d gone on, with her yelling, _Ben, Ben, I’ve found one, I’ve found another Force sensitive person!_ Jannah had been wary, a former stormtrooper who’d revolted with her team, but her Force sensitivity was clear. After a few weeks of introductions with Ben, Rey, and Finn, she’d decided to join them and study to become a Jedi. With Finn already deep in his apprenticeship, Ben had suggested that Rey take on Jannah as her own apprentice, something she’d done with enthusiasm.

They’re a good match, Ben thinks. Rey’s wild daring meeting Jannah’s awestruck wonder, the two of them growing and building off each other, the ideal symbiotic relationship between a teacher and an apprentice.

“Good,” Ben says, now. “Tomorrow, you can show me your Ataru stances. I actually just dueled with a Knight of Ren who favors Ataru, and he made me think about some things with the Form that I’ve neglected to pass on.”

“Astral!” Jannah says.

A hand lands on Ben’s arm, and he turns around.

Leia stands there, looking as impossibly small as she has as of late.

“Mom,” Ben says, wrapping her up in a hug. Jannah fades into the crowd behind them, giving them a moment.

“Hello, sweetheart,” Leia replies, pressing her face into his chest. “Happy birthday, Ben.”

He smiles against her shoulder. “Thanks. Happy… Mother’s Day, I guess.”

That gets her to laugh, which had been his goal. They break apart, but Ben reminds somewhat crouched, letting Leia frame his face in her hands.

“When did that little boy of mine grow up, and become this handsome man?” she asks, her eyes darting around his face. He thinks of his features, as they must look to her: her eyes, Han’s chin, Luke’s nose, Anakin’s narrow face, Padmé’s hair. He knows she looks at him and can’t help but think of the other man in the galaxy who wears the exact same face.

It is her burden to carry, the burden of all mothers: even now, after everything, she cannot help but long for Bail to come back to her.

“A while ago,” Ben says, hoping he does not sound as melancholic as he thinks.

“Hm. Did you like Rey’s hair?”

He sighs. “You didn’t think of telling her what it meant beforehand, and giving her the choice?”

Leia’s look is wry. “Darling, Rey will have said yes to an unvocalized proposal from _me_ before you can even get around to asking her yourself.”

“We’ve been over this--”

“Yes, yes, you don’t want to scare her, you’re afraid she’ll say no, you’re worried her understanding of marriage has been irrevocably negatively shaped by her time on Jakku--”

“Sshh,” Ben says, halfheartedly, glancing around. “I’m working on it.”

Leia sighs. “You’re being silly, Ben.”

“And it’s my birthday, and I’m _working on it._ Can we table this conversation for one night so I can pretend I’m not an anxiety-filled idiot?”

“I suppose,” Leia replies, so dry and droll that Ben can’t help but laugh.

He offers her his arm, and the two of them walk away from the tarmac, into the caves and jungle that make up the Resistance base on Ajan Kloss.

* * *

Ben is thrilled with the cake.

 _“You_ made this?” he exclaims, and his clear joy and delight immediately stamps out any possible offense caused by his incredulity. He is not incredulous that Rey baked a cake; he’s incredulous anyone would do anything so unasked and nice for him like this.

“It’s a Naboo Cream Cake,” Rey explains. “But I messed it up, even though I got the recipe from Amani.”

“Oh, Ryoo mentioned that to me,” Ben says, nodding, studying the cake thoughtfully.

Rey frowns. “When--”

“Why do you think you messed it up?” Ben interrupts, giving her a confused look.

“It’s a bit uneven,” Rey says, gesturing at the cake, shoving Finn aside to do so, ignoring his squawk of protest. “See? Here, and here--”

“It’s good, though,” Poe interjects, working on his second slice. “A little strange looking, but ultimately, pretty good.”

“I think Rey’s said those exact same words about Ben, too,” Rose says, causing Poe to snort into his cake. Rose’s grin is unabashed and deeply amused, and Ben rolls his eyes.

“Don’t be rude,” Jannah says, elbowing Rose playfully. 

“Pshaw, Ben knows I’m only teasing,” Rose replies. “He adores me.”

Ben nods, solemnly. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I would die on a battlefield for Rose Tico.”

Rose beams. 

“Oh, before I forget, though _how_ could I forget…” Poe shakes his head. “Speaking of dying: Rey jumped over my x-wing today. While it was flying. At full-speed.”

“She did _what?”_ Ben asks, eyes wide.

Finn turns to Rey. “Oh, that is _stellar._ How was it?”

Rey looks at Poe, giving him her best _I told you so_ look. 

“It was awesome,” Rey says, turning to Finn and Ben. “Really good. Highly recommended. Force Jump is so fun. And, you know… Practical.”

“I do know,” Ben says. “I disabled a UA-TT via Force Jump earlier.”

Finn and Poe immediately leap in with questions and exclamations, but Ben only smiles. He leans down, pressing a kiss to Rey’s forehead instead. Rey smiles, wrapping her arms around his middle, as he finishes eating his slice.

She looks across the cavern, gazing at all her friends. Leia and Chewbacca, sitting together, somehow still talking about the recent mission to the Atrivis Sector, despite Rey’s insistence that no war talk be brought into this party; Poe, setting his plate down, landing a frosting-splattered kiss to Finn’s cheek, Finn expertly dodging his attempts to steal a bit of Finn’s cake as he does; Rose and Jannah, heads close together, trading tips and ideas regarding the latest haul of old tech, donated by a Resistance sympathizer from Carida. C-3PO, R2-D2, and BB-8 are on the outskirts, in the middle of a long-winded, three-way argument on who knows what; Rey is not interested in joining their bickering.

Above their heads, little lanterns illuminate this small cave, bringing a bit of light in what could easily be an otherwise overwhelmingly dark space.

It is so warm, so comforting, and Rey presses her face into Ben’s chest, smiling.

“Hey! Who started the party without me?”

Everyone looks up, conversations pausing, forks lowering, to take in the sight of General Lando Calrissian in the doorway. He looks as ostentatious as he always does, in a bright yellow shirt, long cape patterned with white and black stripes, and a winning smile.

While everyone calls Lando’s name in a disjointed chorus of greeting, Ben and Leia rise to their feet, moving to him. Lando embraces Ben first, tightly, tipping his head up to rest his chin on Ben’s shoulder.

“Happy birthday, little starfighter,” Lando says, and Rey doesn’t have to see Ben’s face to know he’s blushing.

“Thanks, Lando,” Ben says, quietly.

Lando bends to hug Leia. “You don’t look _nearly_ old enough to be the mother of a thirty-year-old.”

“Noted,” Leia replies, dryly, and Lando cackles with laughter.

“Would you like some cake, Lando?” Rey asks, getting to her feet.

“I’m never going to say no to that, sweetheart. Where’d it come from?”

“Rey made it,” Ben says, shooting her a proud smile.

“A real treat then,” Lando says as Rey cuts him a large slice. She’s quite thrilled to note that the cake is nearly all gone. Either her friends are all _very_ polite, or the cake is actually decent, misshapen appearance aside. “But I see now that the party _really_ hasn’t gotten started just yet.”

From the traveling bag slung over his shoulder, Lando unearths two bottles of whiskey.

Finn and Poe immediately sit up.

“That’s Whyren’s Reserve,” Poe says, seizing a bottle from Lando to look at the label, Finn leaning over his shoulder. “This is… a _crazy_ expensive bottle of whiskey--”

“Well, it’s not every day your godson turns thirty,” Lando says, dismissively.

“That’s how old this whiskey is,” Finn says, pointing at the label.

Jannah leans in to Rose. Quietly, she asks, “Can we still drink it if it’s that old?”

Ben looks at Lando, a small smile on his face. “Dad’s favorite drink.”

Lando grins. “Damn straight. And far too pricey for him to swing casually. It always demanded a real occasion. The last time I saw Han drinking a glass of Whyren’s was on the day you were born. Figured I ought to give you a drink now, since I missed your twenty-first, when you got universally legal to drink.”

A somber expression darkens both men’s faces. Rey knows that Ben’s entire family missed his twenty-first birthday. Ben spent his twenty-first birthday alone, in an unknown cantina somewhere in the Outer Rim. He only allowed himself one drink of a subpar whiskey, to ensure he didn’t get too drunk, to make sure he could still run if the First Order managed to find him.

It is amazing how different this birthday is compared to that one. How much better.

They open both bottles, Lando and Ben pouring generous glasses for everyone in the room. Rey is not normally much of a drinker, but Finn and Poe’s clear awe at the whiskey brand has her curious; plus, it is Ben’s birthday, and they’re celebrating.

“Well?” Lando asks, once everyone is holding a drink. He eyes Ben. “Any words from the guest of honor?”

Ben looks around at them all, and his joy and affection is obvious in his dark eyes.

“Just that… I’m very grateful,” Ben says. “I feel incredibly lucky to be here, with all of you. I’m so lucky to be able to strategize with Poe and the rest of the Leadership Team, to work on the _Falcon_ alongside Rose, the most brilliant mechanic in the Outer Rim--”

“Preach,” Jannah calls, and Rose beams.

“I am so proud to teach and study alongside the three _best_ Jedi in the galaxy,” Ben continues, turning his gaze to Rey, Finn, and Jannah. “I’m so proud to have knighted two of them, and to help guide a third, Jannah, on her journey towards Knighthood, which is rapidly approaching--”

Rey grins as Jannah’s face darkens with red, something awed brightening her eyes. Finn and Rey both reach over to touch her on the arm, confirming Ben’s assessment.

“I lost my father five years ago,” Ben says, and a more sorrowful tone strikes the group. “But I’ve been able to count on his two closest friends to offer me advice and strength in his stead; and I know he is as grateful as I am, to know that Chewie and Lando have stepped up as a source of comfort for his son.”

Chewie and Lando exchange a glance; both men look away very quickly, likely fearing tears at Ben’s kind words, and also the truth of them. The loss of Han is a large shadow.

“And to get to see my brilliant mother, almost every day,” Ben continues, looking at Leia, who has a look on her face that says, _Don’t you dare make me cry._ “... Is truly a fantastic gift, and one I am immeasurably grateful for. And I say that not only as her son, but as someone who believes in this cause, this mission; she brings a unique brand of leadership that has shaped rebellions and resistances for over forty years, and this galaxy would be that much darker without her living in it.”

Leia smiles, turning her gaze down, her big eyes filling with tears. Chewie wraps an arm around her shoulders.

“It was truly the luckiest day of my life when I caught the _Falcon_ on my scanners and lifted a hatch inside to find two young, shocked people staring back at me,” Ben says, looking at Finn and Rey. “I am thankful for Finn, my second-first friend--” and Finn laughs at the old joke, returning to him now “--and his plan to come after me on Starkiller Base, at great personal cost; and for his choice to stay, and study the Jedi Way, while he works to bring former stormtroopers to freedom.”

Poe presses a kiss to Finn’s cheek, and Rey squeezes Finn’s hand in hers, as Ben looks at her.

“And I am just… utterly blessed to have spent the almost five years since that day with Rey,” Ben says. “There is no one I would rather have as my second in this New Jedi Order, no one I would rather have at my side for this war, no one I would rather spend the rest of my life with. The best woman, the best star, the best light.”

Rey hurriedly wipes her tear-filled eyes. Ben smiles at her.

“Just, thank you,” he says, looking at them all. “Thank you for being here with me. _Chakta sai kae.”_

 _“Chakta sai kae,”_ the others chorus, eight voices echoing the Old Corellian toast. Rey takes a long drink of the whiskey, and finds that it isn’t as acerbic as she’d anticipated.

“Oh, shit,” Finn breathes, vocalizing her unspoken reaction. “That’s good.”

“Hell, drink up,” Lando calls. “I didn’t spend a small fortune for this whiskey to go to waste.”

As everyone breaks out into laughter and chatter, Ben goes to Rey, sitting down beside her. He takes her free hand, bringing it to his lips, and kissing it.

“I love you,” he says into her skin.

Rey swallows, nodding. “I love you, too.”

She says it so freely, like she’s said it her whole life. In some ways, that is exactly what it feels like; she tends to think of her life as _before-Ben_ and _after-Ben._ She has loved Ben for nearly the entirety of the time she has known him, even if it took her a bit to figure that out. She is twenty-five years old, and is beyond grateful to know she has spent a fifth of her life with him, and the circle of friends that surround them now.

Rey downs her glass of whiskey, and before Ben can do anything more than emit a surprised, airy laugh, she throws her arms around him, and kisses him.

She can hear jeers and catcalls from their friends around them, laughter and dramatic groans, but Ben smiles against her mouth, and she does not stop.

* * *

“What did Jedi Knights get their Masters, for their birthdays, in the Old Jedi Order?” Finn asks.

Ben runs a hand through his hair; more of a habit now than a necessity. He still isn’t quite used to the much shorter length. “Nothing, probably. I can’t imagine the Old Jedi celebrated birthdays. It would have encouraged them to think about their past, and the families they left behind, which is _not_ something the Old Jedi were wont to do.”

Jannah, on her second glass of whiskey, and starting to develop a bit of a dazed look in her brown eyes, frowns. “I hate thinking about that.”

“Mm?”

“About how… rigid the Old Jedi were,” Jannah says, not meeting Ben’s eyes. “We didn’t celebrate birthdays in the Stormtroopers Corps either. And not only because we… didn’t know who our families were, but because we didn’t know when our birthdays were, either.”

Ben is aware of this, has heard it before, but he still feels an ache of sympathy for Jannah and Finn, and anger towards the First Order. Stealing children away from families is despicable; though they now have evidence that suggests the children that became stormtroopers weren’t necessarily stolen from _families._

A simple blood test, comparing Finn’s blood to a database containing blood samples from all over the galaxy, had revealed that Finn originally came to the First Order from Onderon. After this reveal, Finn, with Poe and Rose, had gone on a special mission to Onderon to attempt to track down his lost family, only to discover what had likely happened to him so long ago. There was an orphanage in the capital city of Iziz that was operating as something of a transfer station between orphaned babies and the First Order. While children older than five were kept as potential adoptees, children younger than that age were ferried off to stormtrooper brainwashing and training programs in other systems.

Records of these babies were erased.

There is no way to confirm that this is what happened to Finn, but based on their lack of any other evidence on Onderon, Finn had chosen to accept it as his most likely past.

He’d led a special ops team into raiding the orphanage, removing it from its abusive and cruel owner’s power, and placing a kinder, better person in charge. Babies are no longer exported off Onderon.

It is probably the closest thing to closure that Finn will ever have.

Jannah, on the other hand, has refused the blood test. She has repeatedly insisted it’s because she isn’t ready, and while Ben is sure this is true, he’s unsure as to what exactly she thinks she isn’t ready for. The reveal that her background is akin to Finn’s; or maybe the fear of finding her family alive and well, the knowledge that they’d never searched for her.

Jannah’s decision is not helped by the fact she has two polarizing examples of the fallout of the blood test, as seen between Finn and Rey.

Rey’s blood had been taken back on D’Qar, the original Resistance base, but it hadn’t been tested until almost a year after that day. The result had come back quickly, informing Rey that she had most likely been born on Vulpter, a massively polluted Deep Core wasteland world of machinery and factories, the biggest exporter of starships and pod racers in the galaxy. During the era of the Empire, Vulpter had been blockaded away from the galaxy as the Empire restricted travel in the Deep Core; due to this, a devastating famine had hit the isolated planet, with most of the planet’s citizens forced into slavery to survive. Vulpter was not able to rejoin the galaxy at large until ten years after the Empire fell.

About the same time as when Rey turned five years old, the time she estimates she was left on Jakku.

The two events cannot be unrelated.

Rey has refused a visit to Vulpter to try to find out what might have happened, how she’d ended up so far away from her homeworld. She tells Ben she doesn’t want to know more; she has told him she thinks the only answers she would get would upset her further.

He won’t push her on it.

It is entirely her choice, and he’ll continue to support whatever path she chooses to take regarding her family. He knows that, for her, these answers aren’t as important as they once were. She was left behind on Jakku. Now, she is her own best thing.

Ben blinks, returning to the present, to Finn and Jannah talking about their birthdays.

“I like Equinox Day,” Jannah says, defending her choice. “So many systems set off fireworks. It’s lovely.”

“Rey and I like our choice too,” Finn says.

Naturally, Finn and Rey decided to have the same birthday. Chaos twins.

“Solid choices all around,” Ben agrees. “And Jannah, I don’t like how rigid the Old Jedi were, either. About _everything,_ really. They weren’t in the business of exploring new avenues or new ideas. That’s why--”

“That’s why this Jedi Order will be different,” Finn and Jannah reply in unison, sharing an amused smile.

Ben sighs, but nods. He’s given this same spiel so many times, to soldiers, to politicians, to royals, to media members, that of course Finn and Jannah have it memorized.

“We know, Ben,” Finn says. “We’re glad.”

“Anyway,” Jannah says. “This was a long winded way of us giving you your present.”

And with that, she hands him a small gift wrapped in pale yellow paper. Ben takes it, shaking his head.

“You guys didn’t have to get me anything,” he says.

“We know,” Finn replies, deadpan. “But we did. And, honestly, it’s kind of for us too.”

Confused over that idea, Ben carefully unwraps the gift. It’s been painstakingly wrapped, and he can only assume Jannah did it, as she tends to put a disproportionate amount of care in mundane tasks. With the paper untaped, Ben pulls it back, revealing a text.

An _old_ text. The text is bound in a mysterious leather (nerf or Corellian, he’d guess) and the paper is practically cracked with age. He opens the book carefully, and sees that it's written in Coremaic, the ancient language the majority of the sacred Jedi texts collected by Luke were written in. But most of the pages have a newer, cleaner piece of paper inserted with them, with a translation into Basic; he recognizes the handwriting of Finn, Jannah, and Rey.

Ben looks at the two Jedi. “You’ve translated this already?”

“Some of it,” Jannah says. “It takes a while; for us, I mean. Probably not for you.”

“When did you get this? _Where_ did you get this?”

“Ord Canfre,” Finn says, and understanding dawns on Ben. “Rey and I were there about six months back for a recon mission, remember? Well, as it turns out, Ord Canfre was home to--”

“An Exploration Corps outpost,” Ben finishes, nodding. The archeological and research branch of the Old Jedi Order, with outposts and schools all around the galaxy. “You found this there?”

“Yeah. We found the outpost and went looking, to see if there was anything worth salvaging. You know Rey; she was determined not to leave without scavenging throughout the place.”

Ben smiles.

“We found this under a floorboard,” Finn continues. “It looks like… Like when the outpost was first raided, probably during Order 66, that someone had the foresight to try and hide the text from the raiders. They managed to save it.”

Ben turns to the title page. Under the Coremaic words are the Basic translation, in Jannah’s neat writing: _Ways of the Cosmic Force._

“The Cosmic Force,” Ben breathes.

They have very few writings on the Cosmic Force, on what it is, what it means. The majority of the texts mention it only in passing, the idea that the Cosmic Force is what binds everything together, via energy fed into it from the Living Force.

Ben has long been curious about it.

“Yeah,” Finn says, grinning. “We thought you’d like it.”

“This is _incredible,”_ Ben says, looking up at them, smile wide. “Thank you so much.”

He bends, hugging both younger people, overwhelmed and grateful that they are here, that they have chosen to be here, to study with and learn from him. It has always been so much to Ben, to know that, to have that. Friendship and companionship and brotherhood.

He misses Bail more than he can say, sometimes more than he thinks he can bear.

But he bears the loss.

He must.

“I can’t wait to read this,” he tells Finn and Jannah. “And I will absolutely make sure to tell you everything I learn. The Cosmic Force was a bit of a question mark to even the Old Jedi Order. I’m stunned there was an actual _text_ about it among their possessions.”

Finn shrugs. “I mean. Maybe? Like I said, we found it under a floorboard; but that doesn’t mean it was put there during Order 66.”

“You think someone may have been keeping it illicitly?” Ben gathers.

“Trying to hide it from the Masters, yeah. There isn’t an author of the text or anything, no note of who might have been reading it, and working out of it. There are some handwritten notes in the margins, but no idea who wrote them.”

Ben considers this.

“I think you might be right,” he decides.

“Another instance of the Jedi refusing to think big?” Jannah asks, dryly, and Ben smirks.

“Very well could be.”

He runs his palm down the cover of the text, feeling the worn and scabbed leather. He wonders what the mysterious past owner of this book thought of its contents, who they were, and where they got the text in the first place.

* * *

The party eventually begins to break up in the early morning hours, past the end of Ben’s actual birthday.

Leia has long since retired to bed, complaining as she left that she is no longer able to keep up with the “young crowd,” leaving with a kiss to Ben’s cheek and an affectionate pat to Rey’s braids, giving Ben a stern _look_ as she does. Lando is, surprisingly, the next to leave, claiming he’s had a long flight to Ajan Kloss, which Ben is sure makes a perfect excuse for the fact he is also not quite able to keep up with the young crowd.

Chewbacca stays, cajoling Rose and Jannah into a game of dejarik with physical monster pieces, as opposed to the holographic ones in the _Falcon._ Finn does not partake, but acts as a coach for Rose and Jannah, and Ben can’t help but be reminded of the first day Ben met Finn and Rey, when he coached them through a game as well. Finn glances up at him, and Ben is sure Finn’s thinking along the same lines.

Poe, meanwhile, is sitting sprawled with his back to Finn’s, finishing his fourth glass of whiskey. He gives Ben an exaggerated salute with his glass.

“You should turn thirty next year, too, Ben.”

Ben laughs. “I’ll see what I can do. Chin up, it’s only five years until Finn’s thirtieth.”

Poe groans. “Kriff. I’m a cradle robber.”

“The beard isn’t helping. You’re going gray awfully fast, Dameron.”

“Yeah. You’re next, Organa-Solo.”

“Probably,” Ben agrees.

The war is prematurely aging them all.

Rey appears at his side, raising an eyebrow at Poe. “You okay? You look like you’re about to fall asleep and spill whiskey all over yourself.”

“I’m good,” Poe says. “Just thinking that I’m old now.”

“Mm-hmm,” Rey says, eyebrow raised. “Well, BB-8’s camped out on his charging port, and we’re taking the remaining whiskey with us. Maybe think about going to bed soon?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Poe says. He reaches up, grabbing Ben by the shirtfront and pulling him down to land a very sloppy kiss on his forehead. “Happy birthday, buddy.” 

“Thanks, Poe,” Ben says with a laugh.

Rey leans over the others, running an affectionate hand over Chewbacca and Finn’s heads and touching Jannah and Rose’s hands. “Good night, all. Finn, don’t let me forget to look at your shoulder tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Finn says, perfectly echoing his boyfriend.

With a chorus of good nights circling them, Ben and Rey leave the cave, walking outside.

The stars over the jungle moon are brilliantly bright, twinkling and shooting in all directions. Ajan Kloss is near another moon that also orbits the planet Ajara, though this other moon is pale purple in color, and it dominates the scene, turning the earth below it luminescent. The base is about twenty acres in size, and Ben and Rey walk through the middle of it, listening to the sounds of the nightlife out and about, the distant calls of nocturnal birds, the scuffling of small critters in the trees around the site.

“Sometimes, I think I can still hear the porgs,” Rey says, recalling their time on Ahch-To when the porgs’ _keroos_ were incessant, and Ben laughs.

He’s laughed a lot tonight, something he can’t help but find surprising. It may be his birthday, but it being his birthday means he thinks of Bail even more than he does on a normal day. He can’t help but celebrate alongside his family and friends and wonder what Bail is doing, wherever he is; who he might be celebrating with.

Ben has no idea who Bail considers to be his family nowadays; if he has anyone.

And what a tragic thought that is.

Rey nudges her hip against his, peering up at him. She squeezes the hand of the arm he has wrapped around her shoulders until he looks down at her.

“Hey,” she says, gently, and Ben knows she understands what he’d just been thinking about. “It was a good birthday, wasn’t it?”

“The best,” Ben says.

And it has been, even with the dreadful omission of Bail, the ragged hole in Ben’s heart.

“Thank you for baking the cake,” Ben says. “That was a great surprise. It turned out really well.”

“Amani gave me detailed directions.”

Ben smiles. “I’m glad you’ve kept in touch with her.”

He shouldn’t be surprised by this, he knows; though Rey and Amani have had very different lives, they’re the same age, and both interested in a galaxy free of the First Order.

“She said the Naberries are keen for us to visit them soon,” Rey says.

“I bet.”

“I told her we’d talk about it,” Rey agrees, with a somewhat somber smile. “I think she knows that by that I mean: we probably won’t come soon.”

There is no reason for them to visit Naboo aside from going to see the Naberries. Naboo is a Mid Rim world that’s spent the last five years as an established supporter of the Resistance, with its government helping to fund the Chommell Sector Force that operates out of the planet itself. With the Resistance firmly entrenched, it doesn’t make strategic sense for the Jedi to make an appearance.

But Ben wants to, and he knows Rey does, too.

It has to go on their neverending list of _Things to Do After the War._

“How does thirty feel?” Rey asks, suddenly.

The base is quiet, the vast majority of their fellow rebels having gone to bed. They’ve passed by only a handful of others, all of whom either give Ben and Rey acknowledging nods, or seem to go out of their way to skirt past them entirely. The reaction doesn’t surprise Ben; for so many, the Jedi were long thought to be only myth. The existence of Jedi, the existence of Jedi in the forms of young people, is strange and dizzying. He mostly doesn’t mind it.

But he cannot also help but be reminded of the First Order Officer’s words to him on Mantooine.

_“And this man is the identical twin brother of the Supreme Leader,” the Officer finishes, his scowl twisting into a pleased grin when Ben hesitates. “He will never be fully trusted by the galaxy, how can you expect to trust him now?”_

_How can I be trusted to lead the Jedi,_ Ben wonders, _The guardians of peace in the galaxy, when I wear the face of its most notorious and hated villain?_

It’s a problem he’s spent the past five years grappling with, ever since Bail took off his mask once and for all.

It’s a problem he can table for another day.

“Thirty is… good, so far,” Ben tells Rey. “I’m alive, and healthy. I haven’t lost a hand yet; did you know Luke and Anakin both lost their right hands by the time they were my age?”

Rey raises an eyebrow. “Are you worried?”

“Eh, not really. Mostly.”

She snorts a laugh. “That sounds right. My worry-droid.”

“Honey, I’m your _thirty-year-old_ worry-droid.”

“Kriff, that’s right. You’re an outdated model.”

“Only a matter of time before I start falling apart,” Ben notes. “Starting… right… now…”

_“Ben!”_

Rey shrieks with laughter, dangerously close to waking up the base, as Ben theatrically collapses, putting all his weight on her, until she’s staggering with Ben leaned over her back and shoulders, bending his knees to do so. She reaches back, one arm wrapping around his middle, the other reaching up to grab his head. He wraps his arms around her chest and stomach.

“I’m too old to walk,” Ben says. “Carry me home, Rey.”

“You’re obnoxious,” she says, and it’s Ben’s turn to laugh, because he’s never been called _obnoxious_ in his life. He’s jostled as she shrugs her shoulders, propelling him further up her back, while bending her spine, so she’s walking almost half-bent, Ben’s entire body draped over her back.

“Honey, you’re so strong,” Ben says, admiringly, and Rey snorts.

“Just preparing for my future where you really _can’t_ walk on your own anymore,” Rey says, her steps even and sure, taking them through the base towards the sand-colored building that houses the barracks where the Resistance sleeps. “When you’ve gone all gray, and scruffy, and can barely lift a lightsaber. When all your students call you _Old Ben_ and revere you for your sage wisdom.”

She sounds, Ben realizes, wistful.

“Thought about this a lot, have you?” he asks, quietly.

She turns her head, looking at him with one pensive brown eye. “I have. It’s the future I’m working towards.”

“Have you gone gray in this future as well?”

“Oh, stars, yes. And Finn’s lost all his hair. But somehow, Jannah doesn’t look a day over thirty.”

Ben laughs, and Rey smiles, her smile devolving into laughter when Ben leans forward and plants a kiss on the crook of her neck, his lips tickling the skin there. It’s one of his favorite places to kiss her, for the sound of that laugh alone.

He would do a lot for that laugh.

He wants to hear it now because he cannot promise her that future she yearns for, and he doesn’t want to make her sad by letting her know that, or by acknowledging it.

“Today was a good day,” he says, instead. “I’ll remember it forever. Thank you.”

“It’s not over yet. I got you something besides the cake, you know.”

 _“Rey,”_ Ben says, disbelieving and surprised, and Rey smirks.

* * *

Rey and Ben have shared a room in the base ever since it was built four years earlier. Their room is on the west side of the barracks, close to a small, clear pond that members of the Resistance have been known to jump into when the heat and humidity gets to be too much. Rey is often woken in the morning by the sounds of croaking frogs rising for the day; her favorite alarm clock.

The room is small like all other bedrooms in the base, with just enough space for a bed, closet, and little table. Cohabiting in such a small space has taught them a lot about each other. Rey was quick to understand that Ben’s manic-like intensity about studying and note taking translated into him maintaining a furiously neat space; meanwhile, Ben learned early on that Rey was a packrat, loathe to give away or trash anything lest it have a future value. Neither of them, in retrospect, were surprised by these revelations. Ben was a devoted, organized scholar, and Rey grew up as a scavenger clawing for valuable goods. Nowadays, they meet in the middle, and try to create some semblance of order amidst the mayhem.

There is a line of small potted plants on the windowsill, a bag of tools designed for maintaining a lightsaber on the floor by the door, several hair-ties looped around a bit of wire hanging on a lamp, several drawings of various creatures done in a child's awkward hand taped to the wall, a stack of ancient texts on one of the bedside tables. Pieces of the life Rey and Ben have built together.

Normally, when Ben is away from the room for an extended amount of time, like the past three weeks, Rey will have turned their room upside down with her disorganization.

But it’s Ben’s birthday, and she’s put in an effort.

“Wow,” Ben comments, raising an eyebrow at the empty table. “It’s clean.”

Rey is halfway into their closet, where the real mess is, and knows better than to respond. She carefully pushes their shoes aside, reaching for the small box she’s hidden in the back corner.

“Aha,” Rey says, straightening.

Ben pauses in the act of kicking his boots and socks off as Rey joins him on the bed. She holds out the plain box, and he takes it.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” he says, and Rey rolls her eyes.

He says it every year.

The worst thing is, she knows he _means_ it; knows that, for him, her simply being here is more than enough of a gift.

“Just open the present,” she says.

Ben gently wiggles the lid off, peering inside at the item revealed within: a flat, dark stone, about the length of the pad of his thumb, with numbers etched on it. Small holes have been drilled into the top and bottom of the stone for a band of leather to tie together and create a bracelet.

He carefully tips it out onto his palm.

“It’s part of an asteroid,” Rey explains. “One I got from the Graveyard.”

Ben’s head snaps up to look at her, his eyes wide. “When did you go to the _Graveyard?”_

“About a month ago, on my way back from Commenor with Jannah.”

It had been a surreal experience, visiting the Graveyard of Alderaan. A massive amount of dark space littered with pieces of rock and dust: all that remains of Alderaan and its moon. The Flotilla, the guardians of these remnants, had been friendly and accomodating, all too eager to share their knowledge of Alderaan’s history with Rey and Jannah, ultimately gifting Rey a small piece of an asteroid that had once been the planet itself.

Ben rubs the stone in his hand.

“Bail and I gave our mother an asteroid rock from the Graveyard for her birthday, once,” Ben says, quietly.

Rey nods. “She told me; that’s where I got the idea. I’ve never seen you with an Alderaanian artifact of your own, and I thought you should have one. Crown Prince, and all.”

She usually only mentions his royal heritage when she teases him. But visiting with the Alderaan guardians in what remained of their world had enforced the devastating reality of it. Leia is a queen with no realm, and Ben is a prince with no throne.

Ben holds the stone up to his eyes, studying the numbers Rey had etched there.

“It’s a stardate,” Rey says, quietly. “The day--”

“The day we met.”

She nods, unsurprised Ben recognized it.

He’s good about that, she knows. Good at paying attention, good at understanding what is important and what needs to be remembered.

“I hope it can be a… promise, of sorts,” Rey murmurs. “A combination of two things that are yours. That past, and… This future. Something you can carry and wear; a constant reminder of both.”

Ben swallows, hard.

He looks at her, something overwhelmed and teeming in his dark eyes.

“Rey,” he says, quietly. “I love it.”

“I hope it’s not… too presumptuous, or anything, to deface the asteroid like that--”

 _“Rey,”_ Ben says, interrupting her. “Of course it isn’t. This was not a _defacing._ I’ve always wanted you to be in my future.”

He takes a deep breath, as if steeling himself.

And then he reaches forward, gently brushing a hand over the ornate braids of her hair. “Do you know why my mother gave you these braids?”

Rey frowns, recalling Ben asking her this earlier as well.

“Er, no,” she says, slowly. “I think she only said that they were… fitting.”

Rey had thought it a strange way for Leia to tell her that she wouldn’t look awful with her hair braided in this style, but had gone along with it anyway.

“You know how Alderaan had a, um… language, around hair styles?”

Rey nods, because Leia has been braiding her hair, off and on, for the last five years and Rey has asked a lot of questions. Most of the styles Leia has inflicted on her would be seen on soldiers and warriors of Alderaan, though a few of them would be commonly worn at special occasions, like parties or festivals.

And she knows that Alderaan had a traditional mourning braid; she remembers Leia and Ben both having a braid in their hair after Han died.

This hairstyle Leia had bestowed on her for Ben’s birthday was new, and Rey assumed it was one commonly worn on birthdays. Judging by Ben’s seriousness, this is not exactly the case.

“The two separate braids,” Ben says, his fingers picking through Rey’s hair as he speaks, illustrating his point, “Are meant to represent two separate people. Tying them together in the middle is to show them becoming joined, as one.” He meets her eyes, and says, “A bride-to-be would wear her hair like this at a celebration announcing her betrothal.”

Rey freezes, staring at him.

Ben bites his lip, face flushing.

“My mother thinks she is hilarious,” he mutters.

“O-Oh,” Rey says, her voice only slightly squeaking at the end.

 _Fitting,_ Leia had said.

Ben takes a deep breath.

“I have neglected to propose to you,” Ben says, quietly, “Because, as you so astutely noted earlier, I’m a worrier. I freak myself out by overthinking things. I focus on everything that could go wrong rather than how they can go right. This means I’ve spent much of the past five years thinking about how I might ask you to marry me, and how you might panic, and flee, and refuse, and leave me completely bereft. I’ve thought about how young you are, about how I’m the first man you’ve ever loved, about how these things might be warping the way you might think about your future otherwise. I think about how very little you know of marriage, how it wasn’t even really a thing on Jakku, or if it was, it was a way for one person to own and control the other, and I think about how you have fought your whole life to not be owned or controlled, and about how I desperately don’t want to make you feel like you are.”

“Ben,” Rey whispers.

“We don’t have a typical relationship,” Ben muses. “We’re lovers, but we’re also Jedi, and this means that I’m also something like a superior to you. I give you direction and tell you where to go and what to do, and you do it, because that’s the relationship between a Knight and a Master. As Jedi, we aren’t equals. And being a Jedi means never fully turning that side of you off, and I’ve always been worried that you might one day change your mind about me, about us, but that you won’t tell me because you don’t wish to harm our working relationship. And for me, the only thing worse than us separating is you wishing to, but not telling me. I’ve never wanted to make you feel trapped, or leashed, Rey.”

“I know that,” Rey says, jumping in, speaking hurriedly because she cannot bear the idea of Ben spending so much _time_ worrying about these things. “You never have. You’ve always encouraged me to make my own choices.”

It was one of the first things he’d said to her, during one of their first ever conversations, under the stars of Takodana.

_“Promise me something. Promise me that whatever you do, whatever you become… Promise me that it will always be your choice.”_

Of course he was determined that her choice of what became of _them_ extended to that promise.

Ben smiles.

“But I see now how my hesitation and worry has also harmed _you,”_ he says. “To make you think and doubt, for even a moment, how committed I am to you, when all I’ve ever wanted is for you to stay.”

On Zakuul, the future at their feet:

_“I’ll stay with you, Rey,” Ben tells her, squeezing her hand. “As long as you want me. I won’t leave you. You’ll always have me.”_

“Me, too,” Rey says, softly.

Ben studies her face, eyes darting around it, before coming to some sort of conclusion. He nods, and this time, he’s the one who goes to their closet, and begins digging around in it.

“I’ll have to remember we both like to hide things from the other in here,” he calls, voice slightly muffled, and Rey frowns.

“What are you--”

“You tried to ask me earlier why I’d been talking to Ryoo Naberrie,” Ben says. “And I didn’t give you an answer then, but I’ll tell you now. I contacted her because I was hoping she’d give me something that had once belonged to my grandmother.”

“Okay, but what--”

Rey breaks off, as Ben returns to her. While she remains sitting on the bed, he kneels in front of her, holding something in the palm of his hand.

And it’s a ring.

Rey stares at it.

The band is a light silver metal interspersed with square, flat gems of light green.

“The band is Chalcedony,” Ben says, softly. “It’s a metal strongly associated with House Organa, on Alderaan; my mother and her family often wore jewelry made of it. And the emerald belonged to Padmé. She had quite an extensive jewelry collection, as every elected Queen of Naboo did and does, and the Naberries still have most of it. Emeralds were her favorite, as Naboo itself is often compared to an emerald, based on how green it looks in space. And I… I thought you would like an emerald because green is your favorite color, and I think this emerald is close in color to your lightsaber.”

“It is,” Rey says, her voice barely discernible.

“And I knew you wouldn’t want any large stone because it would inhibit your ability and reach to fight,” Ben continues. “And because you don’t like flashy things, because you prefer to dress and own as simply as possible. And because you like to get your hands dirty, by working on the _Falcon_ or repairing a droid, or, kriff, just by messing around with Finn in the jungle by climbing trees and wading through mud pits.”

Rey smiles; they have been known to do that.

“So, after I got the emerald from Ryoo, I broke it up, and put it into this ring,” Ben explains. “And then Rose helped me track down a tin of Mandalorian Protective Liquid Coating; the substance the Mandalorians put on their armor to protect it from abrasions and other damages.”

 _“Rose_ knew about this?” Rey exclaims.

“Absolutely. I needed to freak out to _someone._ And Jannah would feel terribly guilty for hiding anything from you, and Finn is utterly incapable of keeping a secret from you, and my mother would be awfully smug, and Poe would just want to talk about if he should propose to Finn or not, and Chewie would tease me _mercilessly._ Rose was my best bet. She’s quite pleased about that, actually.”

Rey laughs, though it’s a bit watery. “I’m sure.”

Ben takes a deep breath. “And, um… Yeah. I’ve had this for a while. And now I’d like you to have it. And… I’d like you to consider marrying me.”

His face is a light pink, and he’s struggling to meet her eyes, instead looking at the ring lying so small and innocently in his palm. Here he is, this thirty-year-old man, this Master Jedi, this man with a galactic legacy, so nervous and awkward and vulnerable before _her,_ Rey of Nowhere.

“Ben,” Rey says, gently. “Is that a statement, or a question?”

_Do you want a deferment, or an answer?_

_Do you want my choice?_

Ben laughs, but nods, running a hand through his hair.

“Rey,” Ben says, and he meets her eyes. “Will you marry me?”

Rey is already nodding furiously, tears falling down her face unashamedly, and Ben blinks, his elated grin rising to meet hers. She leaps forward, nearly tackling him with her enthusiastic hug, shaking with the kind of awestruck, joyous tremors she never believed she would get to experience.

 _“Yes,”_ she whispers. “Yes, yes, yes!”

And Ben is laughing, a gleeful, relieved, tremulous kind of laugh, and she wants to hear it forever. He takes her hand, sliding the ring onto her finger, and she is entirely unsurprised that it fits perfectly; it’s just another example of how Ben is constantly paying careful attention to her.

“Thank you,” Ben murmurs. 

She kisses him, grabbing him by the front of his shirt, and pulling him up on the bed with her.

And he follows her, because he will follow her anywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me longer than normal to write that last scene because it is so! sappy! 
> 
> Ben's hair is the length Adam Driver had his in PATERSON, because Paterson is the ideal man and that's the vibe Ben is giving off here. 
> 
> Leia's necklace at the end of A NEW HOPE is Chalcedony, and it was associated with House Organa. In the Old EU it was actually a "glass like rock" but in this AU it's solid metal. Big shoutout to THE LAST JEDI for making wedding rings canon. (!)
> 
> Also Old EU: the Graveyard, Whyren's Reserve, the Jedi Exploration Corps Outpost on Ord Canfre, Vulpter, Onderon. Leia's twins in the Old EU did give her a bit of asteroid from the Graveyard for her birthday. Finn and Rey's homeworlds determined by me and nothing in canon. Chewie describes Leia and Rey in Shyriiwook as "Mother Leia" and "Beloved Rey" to Ben.
> 
> The main point of this chapter is to show how the gang really likes each other and are all good friends. Specifically, to highlight how Rey and Ben, almost five years down the line, still really like to hang out together. They are each other's biggest fan. The POVs in this story switch rapidly between them; narrative wise, this indicates how they are on the same page. (Literally, LOL.)


	3. On Base

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you not think you’re ready?”

The room he’s sitting in is very dark, and he almost feels like he needs to squint to see the details of it. There is a long black table, empty, save for a plate with a half-finished steak that smells absolutely mouthwatering, along with a bowl of salad, and a nearly empty glass of blood red wine, a similarly empty bottle next to it.

Ben turns his head. 

Outside the window is a massive cityscape, filled with tall skyscrapers, zipping speeders and other transports, and neon advertisements lighting up the midnight sky. There is no moon overhead, and the stars are muddled, smudged and darkened by the smog seeping out of the polluted city.

Slowly, Ben gets to his feet, looking out the window.

The city stretches endlessly below.

It’s unfamiliar to Ben; a dream city, appearing in this odd dream.

A door slides open behind him, and he turns.

A droid enters the room; or, Ben thinks it’s a droid. It’s human-shaped, but where a head would be is only a screen, bits of binary flickering across it rapidly. The droid is moving quite smoothly too, calmly and gracefully, much more fluid than Ben has ever seen a droid move.

“Good evening, sir,” the droid says. “Are you finished with your dinner?”

Ben glances from the droid to the table, and back.

“Yes,” he says, frowning.

The droid walks forward, and begins to stack the dishes together. As it does, its neck elongates, the screen moving closer to Ben.

“A summary of the day’s events,” the droid says, and a wave of information appears on the screen. “The first wave has made landfall on Teth. General Montiban is aware of your order to be kept apprised of the situation as he prepares to make initial contact with the Hutts. He has sent the first team of envoys to attend the introductory meeting in Peroon, and is anticipating hourly reports.”

A technical map of the planet Teth appears on the screen, the capital city of Peroon highlighted, listings of demographics, imports and exports, and the city’s monetary value. There is also a list of names of Hutt Clan members.

“An interesting choice,” Ben murmurs.

Leia has refused to deal with the Hutts, due to their deplorable practices, and also due to their long memory; they undoubtedly remember she murdered Jabba, one of their more notorious crime lords. Ben is rather amused that his subconscious is offering a vision of how a collaboration with the Hutts might play out. Teth makes sense as a no man’s land meeting ground, as it's on the very outskirts of Hutt Space.

“Evoleth Ren has also made contact from Mantooine,” the droid says, and Ben is startled when Hansa’s face appears on the screen, a detailed, transcribed report next to it.

_Resistance fighters… Mazul citizens in the streets, fighting alongside them… A remarkably decent-sized military… FN-2187 confirmed on site…_

“There is something that did not make it into his report that he wishes to share with you,” the droid adds, and Ben’s vision is filled with his own face.

It’s him, a somewhat blurry shot from a good distance away. He stares at the image of himself, fighting the dozen stormtroopers, his blue lightsaber brilliant against the orange sand, one hand holding the blade while the other is stretched out, moving with the Force.

“Evoleth Ren engaged Ben Organa-Solo in a duel,” the droid reports. “Unfortunately, he was bested by the Jedi, and his lightsaber was destroyed. Evoleth reports that the Jedi had a message he wished… to be passed on to you, Supreme Leader.”

Ben’s head snaps around, forgetting there is no head on the droid for him to look at.

“The Jedi wishes you a happy birthday,” the droid says.

* * *

In the early morning sunlight, Rey stares at her new ring.

A crack in the blinds covering the thin window that runs across the top of the wall has sent a sliver of sunlight to fall over the bed, almost perfectly shining directly into Rey’s eyes. It was enough to wake her, something that is rather remarkable, as growing up on Jakku meant she was rarely bothered by the sun while she slept; waking up due to its light now is just another sign of how much her life, and herself, has changed in the past five years.

The ring is another example.

As is the man sleeping next to her.

Ben rolls over, shuffling close to her, pressing his chest to her back. He brushes a gentle kiss to the nape of her neck.

“You’re thinking awfully loudly,” he murmurs, clearly still half-asleep.

“Sorry,” Rey mumbles, reaching down to cover the hand he has pressed to her abdomen with hers. “Go back to sleep, it’s still early.”

“Hm.” She feels his nose pressing into the space between her shoulder and neck, his hair tickling her cheek. “I had a very strange dream.”

“How so?”

“I was in a city I didn’t recognize,” Ben says, still speaking softly, and she pictures him with his eyes closed and talking mostly into her skin. “And this odd droid was telling me about a potential meeting with the Hutts.”

 _“Really?”_ Rey laughs. “Don’t tell your mum that your subconscious is interested in the idea.”

“I didn’t think it was,” Ben says, but she can feel his smile. “And then the droid started talking about Evoleth Ren, and I saw a picture of me fighting on Mantooine… And then the droid told me that I’d wished my brother a happy birthday… Almost like _I_ was Bail, like I was dreaming from his perspective.”

Rey frowns. “That is strange.”

“Mm-hmm.”

She listens as Ben’s breaths even out, as he falls back asleep.

Only then does she slip out of bed to start the day.

The neat braids Leia had artfully arranged in her hair are irrevocably ruined by Ben’s nimble fingers, and her hair has been flattened on one side due to her sleeping on her side. She frowns at her messy hair in the mirror, now roughly the same size and shape of a porg’s nest, before carefully scooping it up into the single bun she favors. She dresses in a loose, dark-colored shirt and tan trousers, tugs on her boots, grabs her lightsaber off the table, and leaves the room.

Dawn has just recently risen, and the Resistance is slow to start the day. Rey exchanges friendly smiles with the soldiers she passes, offering a few vocal greetings of “morning!” to the ones she regularly talks to. The sun over Ajan Kloss is soft and warm, and she walks along the neat, dirt-colored path towards the mess hall.

The mess hall is frequently the most popular spot in the entire base, and the early morning time is no exception. Rey is early enough to beat the rush, but the hall is more crowded than normal for the hour, as the news of the recent shipment of Bothan food has filtered through the rabid gossip chain, attracting curious diners to the space.

“Morning, Tanau,” Rey says brightly to the Volpai supervising the food.

“Morning Rey,” Tanau replies, his four eyes focusing on her. It could be just her, but she thinks his yellow skin looks a little more sallow than usual.

“Lose a bet again?” she asks.

Tanau nods somberly. “Only reason I ended up with the morning shift.”

Rey offers a sympathetic smile. “What’s good?”

“The Kothri,” Tanau says, one long finger pointing to several pitchers of bright red juice. “Spiced fruit juice from Bothawui. And the yellow sweetmallow is quite nice, it’ll complement the Kothri well. And you can’t go wrong with the Haroun bread.”

Rey follows Tanau’s advice, stacking her plate with each item, and then some.

She spots Rose and Jannah at a table in the back of the room, and joins them.

“Morning,” Rey says, and has only just set her plate down on the table when Rose leaps forward and seizes her hand, nearly knocking Rey into her food.

 _“What the hell,_ Rose--”

“Kriffing finally,” Rose exclaims, her voice carrying. Nearby diners look around at her noise, likely wondering how anyone could be so loud and excited so early in the day. Jannah is the only one in the vicinity to minimally react, only staring at Rose with wide eyes.

Rey follows Rose’s gaze, and sees that she’s looking at the ring.

“Oh, right,” Rey says.

“He’s been carrying this ring around for a _year,”_ Rose says. “Every single conversation we’ve had has included some variation of _Rey is going to say no and I am terrified_ that whole time. I don’t even know what he and I will talk about anymore.”

“Congratulations,” Jannah says, peering down at the ring. “It’s pretty. Those gems match the color of your lightsaber.”

“Thank you,” Rey replies. She’s starting to feel guilty; should she have waited for Ben to come with her, knowing she might get reactions like this? Is that how most couples announce an engagement?

She has absolutely no idea.

Jannah seems to read her mind, for she asks, “Where is Ben?”

“Sleeping,” Rey says. “The time difference in the Atrivis Sector is just off enough to knock him off balance. I’m sure Finn is feeling the same--”

“Wusses,” Rose says, but Rey eyes her as she takes a long gulp of caf, noting as well how Rose’s short hair is less put together than usual.

“But I thought you and I could meditate together this morning, Jannah,” Rey continues. “And then I’d like to see your Ataru stances before you show Ben in the afternoon. I think we should make the argument to him that it’s time for you to build your lightsaber.”

Jannah drops her spoon, splattering porridge onto the tabletop.

 _“Really?”_ she gasps, brown eyes wide.

“Really,” Rey replies, smiling at Jannah’s awe. “You’ve been an apprentice for a year, and you’re improving by the day. You do just fine with the spare lightsaber, but it’s a rite of passage for an apprentice to create their own, and you’re ready.”

Jannah runs a hand through her hair, today arranged neatly in thin braids. “Wow.”

“Do you not think you’re ready?”

“No, I am,” Jannah says, quickly, as if worried Rey will take the opportunity away. “I’m just… I can’t wait.”

“Do you really have to make an argument to Ben about this?” Rose wonders.

“Probably not,” Rey says. “But it’s important to him that Jannah behaves as her own advocate. I’ll offer him my own assessment and reasons for Jannah to make her lightsaber, but he’ll want to hear her take as well. It’ll force her to acknowledge not only her strengths, but her weaknesses, and how the creation of a lightsaber will challenge and strengthen her connection to the Force.”

“In the Old Jedi Order, it was solely the apprentice’s Master who judged when it was time for an apprentice to make a lightsaber,” Jannah adds, turning to Rose’s inquisitive look. “With the apprentice deferring to their Master’s judgment. But Ben’s set a doctrine that gives the apprentice’s opinion a similar weight to their Master’s, which is pretty radical.”

Rose looks amused. “Right. Ben. The radical.”

“He is,” Jannah insists.

“The radical who panicked for over a year on how to propose to his girlfriend.”

Jannah considers this. “That’s fair.”

Rey rolls her eyes. Rose reaches for her hand to look at the ring again, and Rey allows this, gathering that this kind of reaction is likely to repeatedly be coming up in her future for the time being. Though she’s eager to get started with her day, making sure Jannah is ready to make her case for her lightsaber, she allows herself to indulge in a silly moment of domesticity and frivolity.

It’s wartime. They must take what they can, when they can get it.

* * *

“Good, again.”

Jannah gives Ben a quick nod, rolling her shoulders, twirling the light blue lightsaber around in her hand. Ben watches, arms crossed over his chest, as she leaps, executing a tall, rapid spin that moves immediately into a somersault, sending Jannah tumbling to the ground until she catches herself on her hand, launching her body forward in a smooth, one-handed cartwheel. The lightsaber remains lit in her hand, the blade moving seamlessly around Jannah, never touching her or the earth.

She straightens, twisting immediately to catch Ben’s strike, his dark blue blade slamming against the lighter one with a crackling noise. She moves quickly, backing up automatically, executing a series of short bursts of movement until she is the one stepping forward, and Ben is walking backward to accommodate her attack. Her swings are wide, and Ben keeps his movements tight and close to defend himself. They slip into the jungle, and Ben is surprised when Jannah _leaps,_ throwing herself into the trees overhead, kicking off from the trunk of a tree to jump over Ben. He twists on the spot, barely managing to deflect the slash she aims at his exposed back.

He breathes deeply, as Jannah swings her lightsaber around in her hands, spinning the hilt above and below her wrists, the Saber Swarm once again knocking Ben back on the defensive. He backs up, realizing Jannah’s changed their momentum and direction, sending him straight into the trunk of a gnarltree. 

_“Solah,”_ Ben says, and Jannah instantly backs down, extinguishing her lightsaber.

She’s barely panting, and he grins, extinguishing his own blade.

“That was wonderful,” Ben says, warmly, and Jannah smiles. “You told me you’d been _practicing_ your Ataru stances, not _perfecting_ them!”

Jannah shrugs, brushing her braids out of her eyes. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“Well, you certainly did that,” Ben tells her. “Though I really shouldn’t be surprised; you’ve always gone above and beyond what I expect.”

Jannah’s smile widens.

They walk back out of the jungle, to where Rey and Finn are sparring, both Jedi blindfolded. Rey’s lack of sight is not dampening her ability to move her dual-bladed lightsaber just as ferociously as usual, the emerald blade singing through the air. Finn is similarly unencumbered, his yellow-colored blade slashing fiercely against Rey’s, the two of them weaving and ducking brilliantly together.

In unison, both Jedi pause, having sensed Ben and Jannah’s return.

The sight of Rey with a lightsaber while wearing the ring he gave her really does something to Ben.

Rey hurriedly yanks her blindfold off. “Well?”

“We’ve got an apprentice well on her way to becoming a master of Ataru,” Ben says, and Rey beams, Finn nodding approvingly at Jannah. “And she’s got a master who needs to work on her Soresu forms while dealing with multiple opponents. Jannah, Finn; attack Rey.”

 _“Hey!”_ Rey exclaims, shrieking as Finn immediately attempts to deliver a _shiim_ mark to her bare shoulder, Rey only just managing to parry the blow away. Jannah leaps into the fray with enthusiasm with a perfect _jung su ma_ spin, forcing Rey into Moving Meditation, slipping into the Force to guide her movements as she works to defend herself against her two attackers. She deflects Jannah’s strike with one end of her lightsaber, while reaching back to land a physical kick in Finn’s gut, sending him into the dirt with a muffled _oomph._

Ben smiles, walking over to the fallen tree where they’ve abandoned their things, including their jackets and canteens. The text Ben had been gifted by Finn and Jannah the day before lies opened on the tree trunk, and Ben looks at it longingly; he hasn’t had any proper time to comb through it, too busy with everything else going on today. Rather than take up the text and continue his reading, he instead picks up his dark jacket, shrugging it on over his white sleeveless shirt.

“Where are you going?” Rey yells, mid-twist. Jannah has to nearly bend in half to avoid the emerald blade that shrieks over her.

“High Command meeting,” Ben shouts back, picking up his satchel.

“Better you than me!” Rey replies.

“You don’t want in on this action?” Finn calls, smoothly jabbing his lightsaber forward in between Jannah and Rey’s bodies, the three of them moving well together.

Ben smiles. “I do, I really do. But I missed the last two meetings, and I know a few Commanders and Generals who’d be less than pleased with me for missing a third.”

“I suppose,” Rey shouts, immediately spitting a Huttese swear as Finn forces her into a short gully, Jannah following her down.

Ben would really like nothing more than to spend the rest of the afternoon watching the three Jedi fight together, seeing how they move, accommodating the others’ space and placement. He’d like to offer his input and advice, catch any mistakes or weak spots, and figure out a plan to fix them. If he was just a Jedi Master, and not part of a military’s leadership team, then he would have that time.

Unfortunately, that is not the universe he lives in.

He leaves his Jedi to their sparring match, walking back towards the base.

It’s just after lunchtime, and the base is crowded with rebels going about their day. Ben steps nimbly out of the way of a crowd of droids rolling past him towards the main hangar on the other side of the base, while also avoiding a pile of duraplast that someone has set aside in preparation for building a new addition to the mess hall. The need for adding on to existing buildings is a good sign, Ben knows; physical evidence that the Resistance is still growing.

Despite what First Order Officer Jamaane thought.

Resistance High Command holds their meetings in a smaller room off the main command space in the center of the base. It was one of the first buildings finished by the Resistance, back when they were all sleeping outside in thin tents, struggling with bug bites and monsoon season. Ben has a lot of fond memories of this time: the bite from a Bitz bug that caused a spot on Poe’s cheek to swell so big he looked like he had a third eye socket; the day Finn and Rose accidentally stumbled upon the cave system the base ended up being built into; nights spent curled up with Rey, under a tarp and listening to the sound of the rain falling outside.

They’ve all come a long way.

Ben walks inside the main command space, blinking in the sudden darkness, so different from the natural sunlight. The room is filled with star charts and maps and screens, fresh intel coming in from around the galaxy every minute. Ben exchanges pleasant nods with people he passes, pausing only to share a brief and deadpan high five with Rose, who winks at him before going about the rest of her duties. As he walks towards the small side room for the High Command meeting, he realizes that Leia is already there, standing outside the room, staring him down.

Ben raises an eyebrow as he approaches her, slowing his pace. “Waiting for me?”

“I heard an interesting rumor,” Leia says, and Ben thinks, _I might be in trouble._ “Regarding my son, his longtime girlfriend, and an engagement ring.”

“Interesting rumor,” Ben says, and Leia gives him her most unimpressed look.

“Ryoo told me you asked for my mother’s emerald stone over a year ago,” Leia comments, and Ben stares, surprised. “She was under the impression it was for a gift for Rey; and unless Rey had a sudden and radical change in her opinion of jewelry, I could only assume it was for a ring.”

Ben tucks his hands into his jacket pockets. “Well reasoned.”

“I can’t _believe_ you didn’t tell me when you were going to propose!”

“What, and deprive you of your delight in teasing me? That’s one of your favorite pastimes.”

Leia sighs, tilting her head up to look at the ceiling. “Han, give me strength.”

Ben snorts a laugh, and Leia looks back at him.

“I didn’t tell you because that would make it _real,”_ Ben says, gently. “I hung onto the ring for a year while I worried and fretted and stressed, and I knew if I even mentioned it to you that you wouldn’t let me rest until I’d done something with it. And, Mom, I have always appreciated that about you, about how you push me and get me to make my own active choices; but this was something I needed to do on my own, in my own time. Does that make sense?”

Leia studies his face. He wonders what exactly she is looking for in his features; resolve, uncertainty, fear?

After a moment, she nods.

“You’re right,” she murmurs. “I don’t need to insert myself into your business.”

“Normally, I don’t mind at all,” Ben says, and Leia laughs.

“Okay, now _that’s_ a lie--”

“Maybe,” Ben admits. “But most of the time… I meant what I said yesterday, Mom. I am so grateful to be here, to see you nearly everyday, to work alongside you and watch you lead. Please know that.”

“I do,” Leia says, softly. “And I’m proud of you, Ben.”

His heart soars with her words.

He thinks of the last time his other parent told him the same.

_“I’m proud of you,” Han says, the words bursting out. “I’m proud of you. Proud of how you’ve… You’ve made hard choices, but they were in the name of saving other people. I might not… I’m not happy with how we didn’t hear from you for six years, but I get why. And I know it wasn’t something you did because you thought any other way would be harder. You did it because it was hard, but it was right. And I… That’s a good thing. That’s a real good thing.”_

“And congratulations,” Leia adds. “I know your father and I… Well, we didn’t have the _smoothest_ marriage. But we weren’t like you and Rey. The two of you have something truly special, with stability, understanding, patience, and a connection unique to your relationship. I know you two will be very happy.”

“I think so, too,” Ben says, quietly.

“I hope I will get to be a little more involved in your actual wedding.”

He laughs. “Of course.”

He offers Leia his arm to walk into the meeting room, but she shakes her head, a small appreciative smile on her lips. He knows she is not rejecting him as her son; she is rejecting him because it’s important that when it comes to High Command meetings and decisions, the Master of the New Jedi Order and the Commander-in-Chief of the Resistance put their familial ties aside in the name of leadership.

Ben just tends to forget this.

He gives his mother one final nod, and walks into the room.

* * *

Poe is already there, naturally, and in the middle of a frenzied discussion with Kaydel. Ben approaches the two with a bit of trepidation.

“Everything alright?” he asks, gently.

“Fine,” Poe says, not looking up. “Elya’s off-world, so she’s gonna have to comm in, and she might be running late.”

“Can’t have that,” Ben murmurs. A High Command meeting without the Commander of Intelligence sure seems counter-intuitive.

Kaydel offers Ben a bit of a harried smile. “Hey, I heard. Congrats.”

“Oh, thanks--”

 _“Yeah,”_ Poe interjects, giving Ben his full attention, looking up from the datapad he’d seemed glued to. “Ben, you lucky bastard.”

Ben laughs, quickly quieting as Leia finally walks in, accompanied by Commander Borsk Feyl’lya of Special Forces. The Bothan gives Ben a very cool nod, followed only with a demurring, “Master Jedi.”

“Commander,” Ben replies, just as coolly. Borsk continues on, Leia raising an eyebrow at Ben as they pass.

“No love lost there,” Poe mutters.

“He’s never approved of the Jedi having a presence in Resistance High Command,” Ben mumbles. “He’s gotten a lot friendlier though.”

The first meeting Ben had attended as an equal member of the High Command, representing the burgeoning New Jedi Order, had seen the Bothan gritting his teeth so ferociously that the entire room could hear it. Leia had been forced to deploy every bit of her political savvy to convince Borsk that it was a fine and smart idea to include the Jedi in Resistance leadership matters, reminding Borsk that Luke Skywalker had once had a say in the running of the Alliance, and that while Ben was her son he was really there because he was Master of the New Jedi Order.

It was a good argument, reflecting the negotiation Leia and Ben had held as they established the Jedi Order’s presence in the Resistance. During the negotiation, Ben had argued for a seat at the table, and won.

Ben only wishes the reasons for it needn’t come up so often.

The next Commanders to arrive are Beaumont Kin, Cha Niathal, and Wynn Dorvan. Beaumont gives friendly pats on the back to Ben, Poe, and Kaydel, the smaller man’s bright smile immediately drawing one from the others as well. Cha looks as impassive and regal as ever, though Poe’s greeting wink forces the Mon Calamari to smile, her face slowly lighting up. Wynn hurries in, though he isn’t late; Ben isn’t sure he’s ever seen Wynn _not_ in a hurry, the older man running around the base all times of day, though him being on base is a relatively rare occurrence. As the Commander of the Sector Command division, Wynn is regularly off-world, visiting Sector Forces around the galaxy.

Sien Sovv is next to arrive, the Sullustan in charge of Ordinance and Supply looking appropriately exhausted, considering the recent shipments of blasters and foodstuffs that have been cluttering up the base.

“Aye, congratulations, Organa-Solo,” Sien offers, almost absent-mindedly, and Ben doesn’t bother to respond, knowing Sien’s mind has already moved on to about a hundred other things.

When the door opens for a final time, it is to reveal the Commander of Fleet Command, an older man with tanned skin, white hair, and tired brown eyes. He briefly looks around the room until his eyes land on Ben, and he grins.

“Ben,” Wedge Antilles croons, and Ben lets himself be hugged.

“It’s good to see you, Wedge,” Ben says.

“And you too, as always,” Wedge replies. “Glad to have you back in this room with us. Rey looked like she was about to crawl out of her skin the last couple times she was here in your stead.”

Ben nods, unsurprised. “She isn’t one to enjoy a long meeting.”

“It can be quite taxing,” Wedge says, diplomatically.

“Let’s get started,” Leia calls, and Wedge and Ben pause their reunion, taking their seats at the large round table in the center of the room. “Kaydel?”

“Recording starts now,” Kaydel says.

“Thank you. Present in the room are: Commander-in-Chief Leia Organa, Minister of War Poe Dameron, Chief of Staff Kaydel Ko Connix, Fleet Commander Wedge Antilles, OaS Commander Sien Sovv, StarCom Commander Cha Niathal, Support Commander Beaumont Kin, SpecForces Commander Borsk Feyl’lya, SecCom Commander Wynn Dorvan, and Master of the New Jedi Order Ben Organa-Solo. Calling in this meeting remotely is Intel Commander Elya Omas.”

“Hello,” Elya waves, as a blue hologram image next to Poe.

“Where are you?” Wedge asks.

“Baxel Sector. I’ll explain why in a minute.”

Leia nods; Ben doesn’t doubt she already knows exactly why Elya is on the other side of the galaxy. “Commander Dorvan, I’d like to begin with your report, please.”

It is not that High Command meetings are _boring,_ exactly. They’re filled with important and critical information affecting every aspect of the Resistance, which thus funnels into the rest of the galaxy. What happens on the main Resistance base on Ajan Kloss is amplified, and redone on the other Resistance bases across the galaxy. 

But these meetings can last hours.

Regarding other Resistance bases, Wynn’s report on movements of the Sector Forces is sporadically interrupted by Beaumont asking a question, or simply commenting on the status of the creation of a new base.

“We must establish a base on Ando,” Wynn declares. “The Aqualish have indicated support in our cause--”

“Yeah, but Ando is _oceanic,”_ Beaumont interrupts. “A base would be difficult and expensive to build, not to mention maintain, and the usage would be exclusive to those who could survive in that kind of environment--”

“You could make that same argument that Ajan Kloss is prohibitive to other species,” Cha notes, and Beaumont flushes. 

Poe’s lips have twisted together, his eyes rapidly scanning a document with statistics on Ando’s demography and topography. “I dunno, I’m with Beaumont on this one. Ninety-five percent of Ando is ocean. And a population less than a million doesn’t seem worth it.”

“But that makes it more likely the First Order will leave Ando alone,” Wynn interjects. “They won’t have any interest in a planet that only exports salt and metal.”

“Ando is right next to the Corellian Run,” Ben muses, and everyone looks at him. “And on the Horos Spine. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to establish a place for Resistance starships to lie low while traveling in those hyperlanes.”

Leia considers her Allied Commanders’ arguments. “Elya, what’s the intel like in the Lambda Sector?”

“Negligible,” Elya replies, her face flickering in the hologram. “I haven’t made it a priority in the Mid Rim.”

“Ask your officers and soldiers to make it one,” Leia says, and Elya nods. “See what kind of chatter we can independently gather from that sector, with a focus on the Ando system. Wynn, next time you’re speaking with the head of whatever rebellion the Aqualish have going on, see what they might be able to provide in establishing a base, including credits and location. Make sure they understand we’re interested in the support, but that we need to ensure our investment is worth it, given how… How _specific_ Ando’s climate is. Once you have an idea, reconnect with Beaumont, and Kaydel will set up a meeting with the three of us to determine next steps.”

Wynn, Beaumont, and Kaydel all hurriedly take down notes that they will then bring to their respective teams in order to enact Leia’s direction. Ben can tell that Beaumont is clearly still skeptical that a base on Ando is worth their efforts, but he’ll follow Leia’s request without further objection.

“Cha,” Leia says, turning to the Mon Calamari. “How is your new pilot training program going?”

This is Ben’s first High Command meeting in weeks; he’d missed the last two due to being in the Atrivis Sector with Finn, Rose, and Jade Squadron. Rey had attended the meetings in his absence, acting as the second-in-command of the Jedi Order, a position she normally delighted to have, until it compelled her to attend a High Command meeting. While Ben was raised as a politician’s son, and has a naturally quiet, thoughtful, and patient personality, Rey was a feral desert child who survived on constant movement and outward aggression. She is not meant for long-haul leadership meetings that are all talk and no action. The fact that she still attends these meetings, taking careful notes in the handwriting she has perfected over the last five years, means a lot to Ben. It is a clear example of her commitment to the Jedi Order, and her understanding of what it needs to be.

It bodes well for the future.

Ben is asked to talk about the recent visit to the Atrivis Sector, and he offers a report, with Wynn paying special attention. Ben describes the friendliness of the rebels on Fest, the minimal First Order presence on Generis, the burgeoning rebellion on Fedje, and the battle on Mantooine. None of the other leaders are surprised by any of his report; the trip played out as expected, more or less.

“We heard that Evoleth Ren was on Mantooine,” Wedge comments.

“Yes,” Ben confirms.

“Did he… Did he say anything about the movements of the Knights of Ren?”

It is somewhat remarkable how even five years after Bail Organa-Solo publicly revealed himself to the galaxy as Kylo Ren, that people are still awkward about bringing him up to Ben. Ben is always torn between sympathy and annoyance. He’s not sure if it’s because people are worried about upsetting him, or offending him; but nothing they can say or do would be something Ben himself hasn’t said or done when thinking about his twin brother as the Supreme Leader of the First Order.

Ben wears the same face as the man the Resistance hates the most. It is an unavoidable fact.

“He did,” Ben says, carefully. “He… insinuated that the Knights are exploring adages and teachings of the Sith.”

“The evil Jedi?” Wynn asks, and Ben supposes it isn’t an entirely off the mark description of the Sith.

“It’s a surprising development,” Ben replies. “We’ve been operating off our assessment that the Knights of Ren aren’t interested in following any known ancient path, but we’ll have to reconsider in light of this insinuation.”

He can tell that most of the Commanders have no sense of what this entails; when it comes to the Knights of Ren, they typically defer to Ben and the Jedi.

Leia, however, does have an idea.

She’s studying Ben, lips pursed.

“What does that mean, exactly?” Borsk asks in a low drawl. One of his furry eyebrows is raised, suggesting that any answer Ben gives won’t be good enough.

Ben is well-used to the fact that there is a good chunk of the galaxy that doesn’t believe in the Force at all.

“Meditation and study,” Ben replies, just as coolly. “Following the guidance of the Jedi Way.”

It’s a bit of a rude thing to say. Bothans abide by their own Way, with Bothan goals following the lines of power and influence, and putting their own interests above all others. Ben implying that the Jedi will seek to follow their own Way now to suggest it is just as important, if not more important than, the Bothan Way, is rather mean.

Borsk’s scowl is obvious even in all his dark fur.

“Keep us posted,” Poe says, hurriedly, having caught this reaction. “Elya, you want to tell the group about why you’re in the Baxel Sector?”

“Sure,” Elya says, her connection too tenuous to catch the tension in the room. “One of my officers just received intel suggesting the First Order is taking its next steps in aligning with the Hutts.”

Murmurs erupt, Kaydel and Poe snapping to attention, Wynn looking pained, Leia’s dark expression darkening further.

Ben only frowns.

This is familiar.

“A First Order General is leading the negotiations,” Elya continues. “My officer is working on getting the General’s name so we can hopefully explore this development further. One thing we know for sure is that the meeting is set to take place on--”

“Teth.”

Everyone looks at Ben.

He thinks he can hear a ringing in his ears. He fiddles with the bracelet on his wrist, the bit of Alderaanian asteroid from Rey.

_“A summary of the day’s events,” the droid says, and a wave of information appears on the screen. “The first wave has made landfall on Teth. General Montiban is aware of your order to be kept apprised of the situation as he prepares to make initial contact with the Hutts. He has sent the first team of envoys to attend the introductory meeting in Peroon, and is anticipating hourly reports.”_

“Y-Yes,” Elya says, looking quizzical. “The meeting will be held later this standard week, in Peroon. As soon as we have more solid information on this, including what kind of offer the First Order aims to make, I will let you know.”

“Will you be visiting Teth yourself?” Cha wonders.

“Planning on it, once we’ve nailed down a few more details.”

“Be careful, Elya,” Poe interjects. “Teth might technically not be in Hutt Space, but everyone knows the Hutts have a dominant presence there.”

Elya nods. “Absolutely, sir.”

“I’d like an immediate report as soon as you know more of the First Order’s work with the Hutts,” Leia says. She looks at her Commanders. “We always knew this day would come. The First Order would have to be mad to not pursue a relationship with the Hutts.”

“Commander-in-Chief,” Beaumont says, quietly. “Perhaps we ought to consider--”

“I am deeply loathed in Hutt Space,” Leia says, dryly. “They call me ‘The Hutt-Slayer’ there. Besides, the Resistance has very little to offer them in comparison to the First Order.”

Beaumont looks appropriately abashed.

“Should we consider alerting the Hutts of Kylo Ren’s parentage?” Borsk wonders.

“Not a bad idea,” Ben says, quietly, and Borsk looks at him with surprise. 

It would certainly put a kink in the First Order’s efforts to draw the Hutts to their side. They might go so far as to demand Kylo Ren’s resignation as Supreme Leader, and Ben knows there is no _way_ Bail would agree to that, treaty and credits and warships be damned.

“It’s possible they already know,” Wedge comments. “Kylo Ren has certainly… made it clear he does not…”

Wedge trails off, awkwardly.

Leia finishes his sentence.

“Kylo Ren has been very open and loud about his rejection of his family,” she says. “If anything, his clear disillusionment and hatred towards his mother and twin might endear him to the Hutts, who I’m certain would find it deeply relatable.”

Like Leia, Ben is decidedly not welcome in Hutt Space.

He imagines the Hutts would lose their minds to find someone with the surname _Organa-Solo_ encroaching on their territory.

“Elya, keep on your course,” Leia directs. “Make discovering the First Order’s plans with the Hutts your top priority. Wynn, get in touch with our friends on Kessel, and make sure they’re aware of these events. Kessel is so close to Hutt Space, they might have some ideas on a way we can get more information.”

She surveys the room.

“Any questions?”

* * *

“Have you thought about where you’d like to go to find your focusing crystal?” Rey asks.

Jannah frowns, idly blowing a strand of dark hair away from her face. “Shouldn’t I first get a confirmation that I can build one before doing that much planning? I don’t want to be disappointed.”

Rey’s eye twitches.

Ben isn’t going to say no.

“He’ll be more pleased to know you’ve put extra thought into it,” Rey says instead, and Jannah nods in agreement.

Rey steps away from her apprentice, going to the stack of Jedi texts resting on a blanket on the ground. The texts don’t really have a home on the Resistance base; they tend to travel around with the Jedi who’s reading them. They sometimes go with Finn, to the room he shares with Poe; other times they go with Jannah, to the bunk room in the barracks where she sleeps; most of the time, they end up with Ben and Rey in their room. The Jedi are all very protective of the texts, and so while they are largely casual about sharing them, they do it with an awareness of where the texts are at all times.

These texts might very well be all that remains of the written words of the Old Jedi.

It is a huge legacy.

Rey carefully retrieves a few choice texts, returning to Jannah’s side.

“Take a look through these,” she instructs. “They include writings on lightsaber crystals, and known locations in the galaxy where they can be mined.”

“How will I know where I should go?” Jannah wonders.

“Ben got his on Ilum, in the crystal cave there, as that’s where the Jedi of the Old Republic usually went,” Rey says. “And I got my crystal in a cave on Velmor, when we visited there on behalf of Commander-in-Chief Organa. And then Finn got his on a trip to Mygeeto with Poe.”

Unlike Rey, Finn had not stumbled upon his crystal. While the trip to Mygeeto with Poe to meet with the rebels there had already been planned, when Ben told Finn it was time to build his lightsaber, Finn had gone to Mygeeto with the additional intention of picking one up. Adegan crystals flourish in the caves of the ice planet, and Finn had dug one out, and now wields a lightsaber with a beautiful yellow blade.

The fact that Finn and Rey chose crystals of the same color delights Rey. They truly are chaos twins.

Though of course Rey’s dual-blades are green, due to the lightsaber also housing the broken crystal of the Skywalker lightsaber.

“Read and meditate,” Rey says, as Jannah still has not said anything about Rey’s reminder of the history of the current batch of Jedi’s lightsabers. “If a certain system calls to you, then we can go there, see what we can find. You’ll read about how some crystals do have more specific aspects; if you find any of those particular ones intriguing, that’ll narrow it down as well.”

“Right,” Jannah says.

She opens a text, and starts reading.

Finn approaches them, his satchel full with lunch from the mess hall.

“Shawda club sandwiches today,” he says. Rey takes hers greedily, while Jannah accepts hers from Finn before setting it aside just as quickly. Finn shoots Rey an inquisitive look.

“She’s hoping to build her lightsaber soon,” Rey explains. “So she’s reading about crystals.”

“Oh, stellar, Jannah--”

“Ben hasn’t okay’d it yet,” Jannah interrupts, not looking up from her reading.

Finn snorts. “Like he’ll say _no.”_

Jannah scowls at him.

Rey and Finn decide to give Jannah some peace and quiet, so they take their lunch and walk a bit away, to eat in the low branches of a lumbering tree nearby.

“Finally,” Finn says, and Rey pauses before clambering onto a branch. Finn holds out his hand, and Rey laughs, but gives him hers.

Finn had been the first person she’d wanted to tell of her engagement, and as soon as he’d appeared in the mess hall, yawning and rubbing his eyes, Rey had been on him, shrieking her news with all her barely restrained joy. Finn had joined in with enthusiasm.

Finn nods at the ring. “Very nice.”

Rey snorts. “You don’t know sithspit about jewelry.”

“No, I don’t,” Finn agrees. “But I know Ben, and I know he wouldn’t give you anything less than the best.”

That’s true.

“I’m glad he’s officially joining the family,” Finn says, and Rey laughs, but her heart swells at the reminder that she and Finn, Chaos Twins, are their own little chosen family.

They haven’t had time to really talk, the two of them, since Finn left for the Atrivis Sector. Rey sometimes forgets how much she misses Finn, and treasures his company, until quiet moments like this where they eat together, fresh off a sparring match.

“When’s the wedding?” Finn asks.

Rey shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“What’ll you wear?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who’ll--”

 _“Finn,”_ Rey interrupts, shaking her head. “I don’t know anything. We haven’t had a chance to talk about it.”

“Fine,” Finn says. “The rumor mill will churn on without me, then.”

Rey thinks about asking, about inquiring what the _rumor mill_ has been saying, but decides nothing good can come out of it.

“There is one thing I know,” she says.

“What’s that?”

“I want you to be my Best Man.”

Finn frowns. “Isn’t that a groom thing?”

“Is it?” Truthfully, Rey has no idea. She’s never seen a wedding, has only heard scattered bits and pieces of information about them. She remembers one time when Leia spoke about her wedding on Endor, mentioning that Luke was the Best Man; Rey hadn’t realized that was something only for Han, and not Leia.

“Well, I don’t care,” she decides. “I want you to be my Best Man.”

“Aw,” Finn says, looking appropriately touched. “I’m honored. Absolutely.”

“Okay. Then can you help me with something?”

“For sure.”

“Can you find out what exactly a Best Man is?”

Finn laughs, and laughs, and Rey joins in.

* * *

Leia shows every sign of wishing to talk to Ben after the meeting, her eyes repeatedly flickering to him while she nods at whatever issue Wynn is trying to get her to hear. Ben isn’t sure what exactly she wishes to talk about, as it could be several things. His engagement, what Evoleth Ren said about the Sith…

Or about how Ben knew the First Order was meeting on Teth.

He thinks he might be able to pass it off as a good guess. It makes perfect sense as a first meeting place.

Except that isn’t how Ben knew they were meeting there.

 _I couldn’t have really been in my brother’s head,_ Ben thinks, as he hurries out of the room, walking back into the main space. _That’s impossible._

Except it isn’t. Not really.

He’s been in his brother’s head before, looking out from his eyes.

When they’d been on Snoke’s dreadnought, and Rey had been on her knees before Kylo Ren, his lightsaber poised to spear through her heart. Ben had been reaching for them both with desperation, trying to contact them, to offer Rey comfort and hope, when he’d blinked and suddenly found himself looking at her, exactly where Bail stood. Rey had confirmed this, telling him she’d thought, for a moment, she was looking at _him_ and not his identical twin.

And then there had been Bail’s voice in his head.

_Ben?_

Nothing remotely close to that has happened to Ben since.

He’s never read about anything similar in any of the Jedi texts. The closest thing would be the mind connection Snoke bridged between Rey and Bail, but that had never put either of them _in_ the other’s head, and it had severed upon Snoke’s death. This was different. This was like Ben was inside Bail’s head, living his life.

He doesn’t know what to make of it.

It’ll be something else to meditate on.

He realizes his feet have automatically been walking him back to the enclave where the Jedi do their sparring, meditating, and studying. He walks out of the base grounds, and sure enough, he spots the three others there. Finn is separate, in a state of Rising Meditation, several feet off the ground, while Rey and Jannah are sitting together, and talking quietly.

Both women look up when Ben approaches, jumping to their feet fluidly.

“Ben,” Rey says, marching up to him. “We need to talk to you.”

Ben frowns, distracted by Rey’s haste. “Yes?”

Rey looks at Jannah, giving her a firm nod. Jannah returns the nod, and clears her throat, pulling herself up straight.

“I want to build my lightsaber.”

Ben blinks.

He shouldn’t be surprised. Jannah has been an apprentice for over a year, and she’s been making beautiful progress. She moves brilliantly with the spare lightsaber, but as a burgeoning Knight, she should have her own.

Ben glances at Rey, but she’s focused on her apprentice.

“Do you think you’re ready?” Ben asks, turning back to Jannah.

“Yes, Master,” Jannah says. “It’s the next step in my journey as a Jedi, and I am ready to take it. I’ve been practicing and studying everyday, and having my own lightsaber will deepen my connection with the Force, and allow me to strengthen it further. Building my own lightsaber means I’ll be able to determine what course my journey will take, and which fighting style I will evolve in. It means that I will be able to stand with the Jedi for the battles ahead.”

It’s a lovely speech.

Ben studies Jannah’s face, and then turns to Rey.

“Anything to add?” he asks.

“Just that I agree with everything Jannah said,” Rey replies. “She’s more than ready.”

This also tracks.

“Okay,” Ben says. “I agree. Jannah, it’s time for you to build your sword.”

A massive smile bisects Jannah’s face, and for the first time, she is the one to initiate a hug, throwing her arms around him.

“Thanks, Master,” she breathes, joyful.

“Thank _you,_ Jannah,” Ben says. “It’s an honor to have you as a Jedi. I’m grateful.”

“Me, too,” Rey adds, laughing as Jannah tackles her in a similarly enthusiastic hug.

Finn slides down to earth, Rey’s laughter snapping him out of his meditation. “What’s up?”

“I’m going to build my lightsaber!” Jannah exclaims, and Finn grins, hurrying up to offer his own congratulations.

“Do you know where you’d like to go to find your crystal?” Ben asks.

Jannah nods. “I did some studying, and meditation, and counseled with Rey, and I’ve decided that I’d like to try and find my crystal on Lothal.”

Lothal has long been home to kyber crystals, colorless crystals that change shade when bonded with a Force user. The crystals tend to concentrate energy in a unique way with the Force; they make excellent focusing crystals for lightsabers.

“Good choice,” Ben says, nodding firmly.

Lothal is also home to an ancient Jedi Temple.

Given the recent revelations--Evoleth Ren’s comments about the Sith, Ben possibly sharing Bail’s mind--it seems to be a good time to visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing a political meeting scene is Not Fun. The main point of it is to showcase how the Resistance functions, and where it's at; it is much bigger in scale than it was in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER. More rebels, with broader galactic support. (We are five years after the Battle of Crait, after all!) 
> 
> The High Command structure is based off the High Command structure of the Alliance in the Old EU; the High Command members are Old EU characters, transplanted here. In Old EU canon, Borsk Feyl'lya was NOT a fan of the Jedi.
> 
> And yay! Plot!
> 
> Story Length Update: I am currently writing Chapter 10 and am estimating that might only be halfway through the story. So it's going to be LONG.


	4. Switch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’d assumed the bond died with Snoke. It’s been five years. Long time, no see, Rey.”

“We’ll be back soon,” Rey says, gut twisting in guilt, staring beseechingly at Finn.

To her enormous relief, he doesn’t seem that bothered.

“I really don’t need to go to Lothal,” he says. “I mean, I’m sure it’s a fine planet, but I don’t feel devastated that I’m not going. Besides, Ben’s right; Someone needs to stay behind, and it makes the most sense it’d be me.”

Rey has long understood Ben to be deeply paranoid, and for good reason. He spent six years on the run from the First Order, living without his family and the Force, due to his valid fear that Kylo Ren and Snoke would find him and attempt to turn him to the Dark Side. Those six years, filled with Ben constantly looking over his shoulder, covering his tracks, switching aliases every week, have irrevocably altered Ben. He’d always been a careful and cautious child, but as an adult, he’s doubly so.

Due to Ben’s paranoia, he refuses to let the entire group of Jedi travel together. When they’re all going to the same location, he insists they split up into separate groups, with the logic being that if they’re attacked, then hopefully only one ship will be shot down, and the others will survive. When it comes to traveling off-world, such as to Lothal, he makes it so at least one of them stays behind on Ajan Kloss.

Rey understands why he does this. He does it to ensure the survival of the Jedi Order, even if there is just one lone survivor, as there would be if Ben, Rey, and Jannah were all killed on Lothal.

Finn will be staying behind on Ajan Kloss, and he is right in that it makes the most sense. Jannah needs to go because this whole trip is her idea, to get her lightsaber crystal; Rey needs to go, as Jannah’s master, to support her; and Ben should go, as Master of the Jedi Order, to oversee Jannah’s building process.

But Rey dislikes traveling without Finn like this.

“Still,” she mumbles.

“Look, Rey,” Finn says, flatly. “I get to stay here and be with Poe. I’m not turning that down any day of the week. So don’t feel bad.”

That gets her to laugh, Finn cracking a relieved smile, and she knows that had been his goal.

“Okay,” she says.

“Bring me back something nice.”

“From  _ Lothal?” _

Finn nods. “Yeah. Surprise me.”

Rey gives a shrugging nod, and pulls Finn to her for a tight hug.

Ahead of them, she spots Ben walking over, rucksack over his shoulder, Leia in tow.

“... Not finished yet,” Leia says, Rey only catching the end of her sentence.

“Oh, I know,” Ben mumbles, darkly. “This is important though, and not about me. It’s--”

“For Jannah, I know,” Leia replies, turning to said person. “Congratulations, by the way.”

Jannah, who has been patiently waiting at the entry ramp of the  _ Millennium Falcon _ for hours (Rey wouldn’t be surprised if she’d slept out here), offers Leia a pleased smile.

“All set?” Ben asks, and Rey gives a confirming nod. “Good.”

He turns to Finn. “Thanks for holding down the fort.”

Finn gives a somewhat comedic attempt at a salute, and Ben smiles, and Rey laughs.

“We’re only taking the texts that deal specifically with lightsaber creation,” Ben adds. “Feel free to peruse the rest as you’d like.”

Another thing that does not travel together: the Jedi texts.

“Homework, lovely,” Finn says, but nods in agreement all the same.

“Poe has a contact with the Lothal Resistance who is expecting you,” Leia says, eyes flickering from Ben to Rey and back. “Please do make a good impression.”

“We will,” Ben says, patiently.

Leia smirks. “Of course you will.”

She reaches up, pulling his face down so she can kiss his cheek. Rey smiles as Leia does the same to her.

“Clear skies,” Leia says, warmly. “When you get back we can get to planning this wedding.”

Finn scoffs. “When they get back? Let’s start planning  _ now. _ Rose’ll help.”

“I like the way you think, Lieutenant,” Leia says, and Finn winks at Rey, who rolls her eyes.

Ben, Rey, and Jannah walk up the ramp of the  _ Falcon, _ heading into the cockpit. Ben slides into the pilot’s chair, while Rey settles in as co-pilot, and Jannah perches in the chair directly behind hers. Out the transparisteel window, Rey watches as Leia and Finn move back to the treeline, away from the  _ Falcon’s _ engines. Their heads are close together, Leia’s arm looped through Finn’s.

“Should I be worried that we’ll come back to find out we’re getting married right on this landing tarmac?” Ben wonders.

Rey snorts. “If anything, I think we should be worried that  _ Finn and Poe _ will have married while we were off-world.”

“Finn wouldn’t do that to you,” Jannah muses. “He’d make sure you were there.”

It’s a sweet thing to say, and Rey doesn’t think Jannah is wrong.

She fully intends to be Finn’s Best Woman, if that’s a thing. She’ll have to ask Ben about it.

Ben guides the  _ Falcon _ off the ground, pointing her to the atmosphere. Ajan Kloss becomes a mass of speckled green below, interspersed with lime-colored swamps and lighter blue seas. They soar up into the messy gray clouds, before finally breaching the atmosphere, emerging into midnight black space. The gas giant Ajara looks on, a hazy purple orb.

“Let’s see lines,” Ben murmurs.

Rey finishes setting their course. Lothal is on the other side of the Outer Rim, fairly close to Mon Calamari. It’ll take them days to get there, giving Jannah plenty of time to put together the hilt of her lightsaber; they’ve brought more than enough disposed tech for her to get the job done.

Course set, Ben hits the hyperdrive switch, and they speed off into the stars.

* * *

The text Jannah, Rey, and Finn had gifted him is getting really interesting, and Ben hates to abandon it, but knows if he is going to continue to be a good Jedi Master, that he needs to do so now.

“Have you thought about your design?” he asks Jannah.

He sits on a stool, looking down at her, sprawled on the floor, surrounded on all sides by bits and pieces of metal.

“Something akin to a standard design,” Jannah says, swiftly. “Rey’s sword is super cool-looking, but the dual-blades would distract me; I’d be useless with it.”

“Same,” Ben says, and Jannah smiles.

The Jedi in question is in the galley, preparing dinner for the three of them.

“And I’m not interested in a curved hilt, or a shoto, or anything,” Jannah continues. “Ergo; standard.”

“I see.”

“And also unlike Rey…” Jannah pauses, and says, “I don’t want to take apart the weapon I brought with me into the Jedi Order.”

Rey’s lightsaber had been made with parts of her staff, making up most of the physical hilt itself. It had felt right, to Rey, to build her new weapon from the parts of the one she’d carried her whole life, one she’d fought and protected herself with. Jannah came to the Resistance having spent her post-stormtrooper life wielding an energy bow, a weapon she maintains and uses still. Ben was curious once, and tried it; it’s a brilliant, lethal weapon, and he understands Jannah’s fondness for it.

“More than fair,” he tells Jannah. “I’d never ask you to do that.”

“I’m glad,” Jannah says. “I have been working on this, though.”

She hands him a small metal knob, about the size of a metal washer. Minute indents have been notched in its sides.

“What have you done to this focusing lens?” Ben asks, recognizing the shape.

“I read about an adjustment the Jedi on Ossus made to theirs,” she explains. “It was widely used at the enclave there. The idea is that it’ll make the blade more focused, adding better control over the lightsaber itself.”

More control; a typical Jannah thing to want.

“And you made this?” Ben asks.

“Based on their designs, yeah.”

He passes the lens back to her. “I can’t wait to see how it looks.”

Jannah smiles. “I am curious about one thing; the color of the blade. Will I be able to tell, based on the crystal I pick?”

“Not with kyber crystals,” Ben says. “They’re colorless. They’ll change color when you bond with the crystal, but what that color will be… I’ve no idea. The Force will choose it for you.”

“So for yours, Rey’s, and Finn’s…”

“We knew what colors we were getting,” Ben says. “Our crystals aren’t as mysterious. I am very interested in seeing how your kyber crystal changes for you.”

“Will it… mean anything?”

Ben thinks about it.

“The Jedi used to break up their Knights into separate divisions,” he says. “Jedi Consulars mostly carried green blades. Consulars were negotiators, conflict mediators, and profoundly skilled with the Force, more so than other Jedi. They were seers, healers, researchers, diplomats, and historians.”

Jannah’s nose wrinkles. “That doesn’t really sound like Rey.”

“No,” Ben agrees. “But Rey’s sword is green because she’s carrying blue and yellow crystals.”

“Oh, right.”

“Jedi Sentinels were the ones who usually had yellow blades,” Ben continues. “They were… kind of the wild cards of the Order. They tended to do the strange, but necessary work, to keep the Republic and the Jedi operating well. So they were slicers, tech experts, and Shadows.”

“Shadows?”

“The elite team,” Ben says, smiling. “Responsible for searching out and ridding the galaxy of the Dark Side. They were kind of like intel officers, and they often had moral compasses that guided them to doing the right thing, even if it was hard.”

“That sounds more like Rey and Finn,” Jannah muses. “Sentinels. Wild cards.”

“Yes.”

“And blue blades?”

“Jedi Guardians typically wielded blue blades. Guardians were the first physical defenders of the Republic, the first Jedi to fight. They were peacekeepers, duelists, and starfighter pilots.”

“Is this why you have a blue blade?” Jannah asks.

Ben hesitates.

“Some kinds of crystals grow together,” he says. “In patches, and clumps. When we visited Ilum with Master Luke to find our crystals, my brother and I specifically sought crystals that had grown closely together. It was important to us that we wield twin crystals, as we were twin brothers. The crystal I carry now was one of two we found almost soldered together, but  _ naturally _ soldered together. They broke apart for us.”

Jannah’s thoughtful look has turned pained. “I see. Does he… Is Kylo Ren’s lightsaber still using that same crystal?”

“I think so,” Ben admits. “But it’s bled. He poured his rage, hate, fear, and pain into the crystal until the blue turned red. That’s why Dark Siders often carry red lightsabers. They weren’t built specifically with rubied crystals.”

“Makes sense,” Jannah says. “I wondered about that, why they were all red. Seems kind of on the nose.”

Ben snorts a laugh, and Jannah grins.

* * *

Rey is quite proud of the Topato soup she made, and going by Ben and Jannah’s enthusiastic gulping, they are similarly impressed. Rey had been a bit skeptical, concerned with the odd light green color of the soup, even as the recipe insisted this was what it was meant to look like; kind of the opposite of what had happened with the Naboo Cream Cake.

While Jannah washes their dishes in the tiny sink in the galley, Rey wanders the ship, looking for Ben.

“Ben,” she calls. “Finn asked that I bring him something nice from Lothal, but for the life of me--”

She breaks off.

She had just been about to pass by the bunk room, but the sight of Ben leaning over one of the bunks has stopped her. Jannah is the only one sleeping in this room; Rey and Ben will be sharing the captain’s quarters, as usual. She is at first bewildered as to what has distracted Ben, until she walks in, and peers over his bent back.

One of his hands is raised, fingers tracing the shape of the initials that have been scratched into the wall by the hand of a young boy.

B.O.S. WAS HERE.

And directly under it: B.O.S. W, the writer interrupted before they could finish.

The marks were done by Bail and Ben as children, the two of them determined to make their physical mark on the ship that was beloved to their family. Ben isn’t sure who wrote which part, or why they were interrupted; he doesn’t remember, and Bail and Ben’s handwriting is far too similar for him to discern the writer’s identity based off the awkward scratches.

She stands behind Ben, watching as he tenderly traces the shape of the initials.

“Ben,” Rey says, softly, and his spine stiffens.

Slowly, he gets to his feet, and turns to look at her.

And Rey gasps.

It’s Ben; but it’s also not.

It’s his body, certainly, with his short hair, angular face, broad shoulders, tall height. He’s wearing the clothes he was wearing minutes ago at dinner, the loose shirt and dark trousers, shoeless, with wool socks keeping his bare feet from freezing on the cold of the  _ Falcon’s _ metal floors.

But the person looking at her is not Ben.

It’s Bail.

* * *

Ben gasps, all the air leaving him in one rush, his hands scrambling for purchase, feeling only something like satin under his fingers until he reaches down, down, and there is something scaly, almost lizard-like, and he blinks, dazed, looking down into big orange eyes that are gazing at him alluringly, and light green skin, above a mouth that is wrapped around--

He is not proud of the sound he makes, which is halfway between a shriek and a caterwaul.

He shoves the Twi’lek woman away, her lekku brushing against his skin as he topples to a hard, cold floor. He is completely naked, and he sits there, sprawled, still breathing rapidly, still horrifically and obviously aroused.

The woman turns to look at him, and he sees she is also very nude.

“Kylo?” she asks, frowning. “Are you okay?”

Ben stumbles to his feet.

He’s in a dark room, black decorations accented in white and red. The bed he had just been lying on with the Twi’lek woman is massive, dark satin sheets and a pile of pillows. He sees a large closet on the other side of the bed, a small table, an armchair. When he turns around, he’s looking at a wall of windows, showing a rumbling metropolis.

He’s seen this city before.

In that…  _ dream. _

“Where am I?” Ben asks, turning back to the woman.

She frowns. “What?”

“Where--” he stops, replaying the last thirty seconds. “You called me Kylo.”

“Oh, right.” The woman bats her eyelashes, and Ben stares. “Supreme Leader.”

“That’s not…”

He trails off.

An awful feeling rolls through him.

He turns and hurries away, still very naked, but with a feeling of real panic running through his veins. There is a fresher across the room, and he darts into it, slamming the door to the sound of the woman’s confused squawk. The fresher is decorated exactly like the bedroom, metallic lines of black and red and white, and Ben steps up to the mirror running above the counter, and looks at his reflection.

But it isn’t his reflection.

It’s Kylo Ren’s.

It’s Bail’s.

* * *

Rey would recognize the presence behind those familiar brown eyes anywhere. Bail has never looked at her like Ben has. While Ben has always looked at her with warmth and affection, Bail looks at her with calculation, coupled occasionally with scorn, dislike, and vulnerability. There is not one inch of doubt in her mind that she is looking at Kylo Ren now, here, in the  _ Millennium Falcon. _

In Ben’s body.

“Strange,” Bail muses. “I’d assumed the bond died with Snoke. It’s been five years. Long time, no see, Rey.”

Rey blinks.

He thinks their minds have been connected again, like when he’d appeared on Ahch-To to her. She supposes this is a fair assumption, though--

“But I can see your surroundings quite clearly,” he continues, looking around. “This is the  _ Millennium Falcon. _ The writing on the wall; that’s…”

He trails off, his jaw tightening.

“Is this a dream?” he asks.

“I don’t think so,” Rey whispers.

“Where is Ben?”

As always, she hears that agonized whisper of longing that traces under Bail’s voice when he says his brother’s name. She knows that pointing it out to him will only enrage him, so she bites her tongue.

“A good question,” she says, instead. “Considering you’re  _ in his body.” _

Bail stares at her.

He spins around, marching straight to the back of the room, to the cabinet next to the window, deep space blurring past them at lightspeed. Bail pulls the cabinet open, revealing a small mirror hanging on the inside; Rey had never known it was there.

But Bail does, because of course he does. He practically grew up in this ship.

Him, and his brother.

With their father.

Han has been dead for five years, murdered by his own son.

The pain of the loss grips Rey, and she rolls her shoulders, determined to remain focused in the moment.

Bail studies his reflection in the mirror. She watches as he twists his head from side to side, runs a hand through his short hair, quirks his lips, wrinkles his nose. Sporadic and random movements designed to confirm to himself that he is the one making them.

“I’m not sure how I feel about the short hair,” Bail comments.

As she watches, his fingers brush the bracelet on his wrist, turning the asteroid up, looking at the numbers there. But Rey is sure he doesn’t understand their significance, and she decides to ignore it.

Instead, she says, about the hair comment:  _ “That’s _ what you’re focusing on?”

Bail turns around to look at her. His face is dark, unreadable, and her skin crawls.

_ Not Ben, not Ben, not Ben, _ she chants to herself.

From further in the ship, she hears Jannah call, “Hey, Rey?”

“Just a minute,” Rey shouts back, moving to the doorway, spreading her arms, and holding Bail’s confused gaze. He’ll have to get through her first if he wants a shot at getting to Jannah.

She doesn’t have her lightsaber on her, but she has her fists, knees, and teeth, and she isn’t afraid to get rough if she needs to.

* * *

“Kylo?”

Ben ignores the woman’s confused shout, focusing only on his reflection.

“No kriffing way,” he whispers, hands reaching up to touch his face.

It’s the face he looks into everyday, whenever he looks into a mirror, save for a few critical differences. His hair is much longer here, almost brushing his shoulders. And the bags under his eyes are deeper than he’d last seen them, like he hasn’t been getting a lot of sleep.

But most noticeable is the long, thin scar that runs down the right side of his face.

It’s the scar Rey put on Kylo Ren, when they fought on Ilum.

“Bail?” Ben whispers, and waits.

The room is silent.

There is only Ben here.

Only Ben in this body.

* * *

“Who is that?” Bail asks, politely, and when Rey only glares, he continues with, “And where are we going?”

_ “We _ aren’t going anywhere,” Rey snaps. “You put… You bring Ben  _ back.” _

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, I would really like to. I’d much prefer to be back to where I was just now. I was kind of in the middle of something.”

There is something…  _ lascivious _ in his tone. Rey doesn’t like it.

“And if I know my brother,” Bail continues, “Then I know he’s feeling terribly uncomfortable where he is. Assuming he’s ended up in my body, like I am somehow in his.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rey demands. “What were you doing?”

* * *

“Kylo?” the woman calls again.

“Don’t panic, don’t panic,” Ben whispers to himself.

He looks around the fresher, though what he’s searching for, exactly, he has no idea. It’s just a fresher. Outside the door, he can hear the Twi’lek woman walking around, and he dearly hopes she’s getting dressed, because dealing with a naked woman who is not Rey is not something he’s comfortable doing.

Particularly when he is currently wearing his brother’s skin.

The plus side is this event confirms one thing for him.

That  _ dream, _ with the droid and the city and the intel on Teth and his own image; it hadn’t been a dream.

It had been real.

Ben has looked at the galaxy from behind Bail’s eyes before.

And Ben realizes, with a pit of dread opening in his stomach, that right now, Bail is doing the same with his eyes.

* * *

“Something infinitely more pleasurable than this conversation,” Bail says, dryly. “And something poor Ben is going to have a difficult time explaining to his…”

He trails off.

While Rey has been glaring at Bail, he’s been casually looking around the space. Rey guesses he’s doing it to try and discern why Rey and Ben are here, and who they’re with, and where they’re going. But his looking has returned to Rey, arms still spread protectively over the doorway, and she realizes his eye has caught on her left hand.

More specifically, on the ring there.

Rey drops her arms, covering her left hand with her right one.

“Ah,” Bail says, quietly. “I see that our intel has not been very thorough. Shall I offer my congratulations?”

She studies him. “Depends. Are you congratulating me as Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader of the First Order; or as my betrothed’s brother?”

Bail doesn’t speak.

He only gazes at her, and Rey holds his stare, chin lifted.

_ I am not afraid of you, _ she thinks.

“I thought we’d been over this, Rey,” Bail says, quietly. “I never stopped being Ben’s brother.”

_ “Ben was your brother,” Rey says. “He was your brother, and you tortured him--” _

_ “He is my brother,” Kylo snaps. Some of the familiar fury returns to him, distorting his features, and it is a relief for Rey. This is the Kylo Ren she knows how to handle. “We share the same face. I am his, he is mine.” _

In the  _ Millennium Falcon _ now, that statement of Bail’s has been made more literal than ever before.

He is literally wearing Ben’s  _ exact _ face.

Rey hates this, she hates this so much.

“I am my brother’s keeper,” Bail whispers, a long-running mantra between him and Ben. “Literally now, I suppose. Rey, you should--”

It happens in the breadth of a second.

One moment, Rey’s skin is crawling, and she’s glaring at Kylo Ren.

In the very next moment, calm has slipped over Rey, as Kylo blinks, and it’s Ben.

His return is not graceful; he stumbles, hand flying out to grasp at the nearest thing, the cabinet door. As Rey watches, he spins on the spot, staring at his reflection in the small mirror.

He’s breathing, hard, like he’s been running. He brushes his hands over his face, almost exactly like Bail had minutes before; ascertaining that it’s really him, his hands, his skin.

Slowly, he turns around.

He stares at Rey, and she stares back.

“Rey,” Ben whispers. “I think we have a problem.”

* * *

Ben pushes past Rey, who stares at him in astonishment.

“Ben, wait--”

She follows him to the galley. It’s empty now, Jannah in another part of the ship. Ben marches straight to the cabinet over the small sink, opening the door and seizing the bottle of Tevraki whiskey inside. As Rey watches, he hurriedly unscrews the top, and takes a long swig.

“Ben,” Rey repeats.

He shakes his head, chugging the whiskey down straight.

Eventually, he stops drinking, and leans over the sink, panting.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” he mumbles.

“I’d imagine so,” Rey replies. “You just downed about four shots straight--”

“Not the  _ whiskey, _ Rey!” Ben exclaims.

He finally looks at her. His brown eyes are wide, so wide, and filled with horror and fear and bewilderment.

“He was  _ here,” _ Ben whispers. “With  _ you.” _

Rey nods, expression softening.

“I’m fine,” she says. “He was mostly just confused. He thought… He thought the bridge between our minds had somehow been awoken. And then, when he realized it wasn’t the same thing, he thought he was dreaming.”

Ben grips the sink, staring down into it.

He can feel her eyes on him.

“That dream,” Ben murmurs. “That dream I told you about the other day. It wasn’t a dream. I was in his body. And he… he was in our  _ bed, _ with you.”

He chances a look at her.

She’s only watching him, still incredibly calm.

He isn’t sure if she’s just not as freaked out as he is, or if she’s hiding it, determined to be the cool and collected one, letting Ben panic enough for the both of them.

“But I think he must’ve been asleep,” Ben continues. “Because I had been asleep. But he was awake, so when we switched, I was awake, too. And just now, he was--”

Ben breaks off.

“Bail was quite keen to return to his body,” Rey comments. “And he said you’d be feeling really uncomfortable with whatever he’d been doing, and you’d have a hard time explaining it to me.”

Ben emits a shaky laugh.

“My brother is such an  _ ass,” _ he mumbles.

“What was he doing?”

Ben sighs, shaking his head.

“Having sex with a Twi’lek woman,” he admits, turning to look at Rey.

He has no idea how she’ll react.

To his utter relief, her eyes crinkle, and she bites her lip; the things she does when she is trying very hard not to laugh.

“Oh, you poor thing,” she says.

“It’s not funny,” Ben says, but he can’t help but start to smile, shaking his head. Rey puts a hand on his back, rubbing gently.

“I suppose not,” she allows. “But it could have been worse.”

_ “How? _ How could it--”

“He could’ve been in the middle of a fight, about to be killed.”

That gives him pause. It’s a good point.

“So… What do you think is happening here?” Rey asks. “How are you and Bail switching bodies?”

Ben shakes his head. 

“I have absolutely no idea.”

* * *

They tell Jannah what has happened, minus the more salacious details. Rey thinks she holds it together remarkably well, though Jannah has always been a firm hand under pressure. Still, her big eyes only widen in amazement, her eyebrows soaring to her hairline.

“I don’t think I’ve ever read about anything like this,” she says.

“Yeah, well,” Ben says, and gives an inelegant shrug, as if to say,  _ Same here. _

They don’t have all of the texts with them in the  _ Falcon, _ but they pore over the ones they do have, searching for anything remotely similar to what is happening with Ben and Bail. The closest thing Rey can think of is a Force meld, wherein a group of Force users can join their minds together, the better to help coordinate an attack in the heat of a battle. But this isn’t that; this is more than just Bail and Ben exchanging thoughts in a contained space. And a Force meld requires careful concentration and intention, and it’s clear that neither Bail nor Ben had intended to switch bodies.

“It isn’t quite like Teleportation, right?” Jannah asks, naming the rare Force power that involves the moving of objects.

“No,” Ben replies. “Aside from the fact that Teleport can only be done between places the Force user can actually see… This wasn’t my brother and I switching places. We were switching bodies.”

Rey calls Finn, and gives him the news.

“Wait,  _ what?” _ he exclaims, and Rey scowls, waving her hand as an indicator that he should quiet. Judging from the trees behind him, he’s outdoors; it’s been two days on Ajan Kloss since they left. She’s quite sure Ben doesn’t want anyone else to know of the situation besides the Jedi.

She can’t even imagine what  _ Leia _ would say… 

“You didn’t mishear me,” she replies. “We’d like you to read through the texts as quickly as you can, to see if there’s anything.”

“Sure,” Finn says. “But I’m just one guy, Rey. And we’ve got, like, five books. I’m not the fastest reader.”

She supposes that’s fair.

Rey frowns, thinking. Leia is a no go; she’ll immediately want to recall them from Lothal, and they’re halfway there anyway, and then Leia has an emotional attachment to Bail and won’t be able to separate that, not when it deals so closely with Ben. Poe is similarly a no go, in that he’s Leia’s second-in-command, and is more likely to insist they debrief the rest of Resistance High Command on the situation, and that is possibly the  _ last _ thing any of them wants.

And then Rey remembers the person who Ben last trusted to keep a secret of his.

“Rose,” she says, firmly. “Tell Rose. Ask her to help you read the texts.”

Finn raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really. She’s polite enough to not ask a ton of questions, though part of this problem is that all we  _ have _ are questions. But she’s smart, and quick, and she won’t freak out. And we  _ cannot _ freak out.”

Finn studies her face, though she’s sure she just looks like a blue holographic blur to him, as he does to her; the  _ Falcon’s _ comms are as good as they are ever going to be.

“How are you?” Finn asks.

“Fine.”

His face drops, mouth thinning. “Rey.”

Rey runs a hand over her neat braid, draped over her shoulder. “I… I don’t know. It happened so quickly. I was more surprised than afraid, really.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. Did he say anything to you? Did he… You know.  _ Hurt _ you?”

Finn’s concern is sweet, she thinks. 

“I’m not sure Bail’s ever really wanted to hurt me,” she says.

Finn actually snorts at that. “Rey. Buddy. Have you completely forgotten Starkiller Base? It was five years ago, but you might recall how Kylo Ren was a maniac with a red laser sword, who carved up my spine and immediately moved to attack you--”

“That was different,” Rey insists. “We didn’t know each other.”

“Ah. So, you think he’ll be different, since it’s after the mind connection by Snoke. Despite the fact that he’s still  _ Master of the Knights of Ren, _ and, oh yeah,  _ Supreme Leader of the First Order.” _

It sounds silly when Finn puts it like that.

“I just… I feel like I know him better,” Rey says. “It’d be different if it was Celosia Ren, or Fallow, or Evoleth--”

“Rather than the man who shares Ben’s face?”

Rey looks at Finn.

He stares back.

“What are you saying?” she asks.

“Just… be careful,” Finn presses. “Five years is a long time, Rey. He’s been doing his best to unhinge the galaxy, committing genocides, and creating famines, and decreeing public executions of rebels, and leading a brutal military--”

“I know that,” Rey spits, suddenly both angry and hurt.

“I know you do,” Finn says. “I know. I’m just worried you might… put that aside. When you think about Kylo Ren. Because he’s Ben’s twin, and because he’s been vulnerable with you before. He’s shared his thoughts and his pain, and you’ve found him sympathetic. So just… be careful.”

Rey’s anger only spikes.

“Thanks for the concern,” she snaps, and Finn’s eyes turn beseeching.

“Rey--”

“Ask Rose to help, and give her my love,” Rey interrupts, and then ends the call.

She’s left to blink into open space, deep space whizzing by just outside the transparisteel viewport. She’s alone in the cockpit, Ben and Jannah both going over texts in the main hold.

Rey swallows, closing her eyes.

_ Breathe, _ she thinks, recalling one of Luke’s most favored and critical lessons.  _ Just breathe. _

She waits until her breaths are even and long, and then she gets to her feet.

She is surprised to find only Ben in the main hold, seated on the long bench next to the dejarik table. He’s flipping, rather aimlessly, through one of the texts, a forgotten cup of Gatalentan tea next to him.

“Where’s Jannah?” Rey asks.

“Bed,” he replies, not looking up. Rey checks the chronometer on the wall, and realizes it’s after midnight.

“Waiting up for me?” she asks.

Ben shrugs. “What did Finn say?”

“He didn’t have any insight,” Rey says, and Ben only nods, unsurprised. He still hasn’t looked at her. “I told him to ask Rose to help him go through the texts. He needs a second pair of eyes, there’s too many to go through, if we want an expedient answer here. And I figured Rose was our best bet.”

“Because she isn’t Poe, who will want to think about this in terms of strategy or defense,” Ben murmurs. “And she isn’t my mother, who will become dually hopeful and cynical.”

Exactly Rey’s thinking, more or less.

“Good choice, honey,” Ben decides.

She hates how he’s only looking down at the text in his hand, fidgeting with the edge of one ancient piece of paper between his fingers. She hates how he hasn’t looked up at her.

“Ben,” Rey says, softly. “Ben, look at me.”

It seems to take him a great deal of effort to, but he raises his head, dark eyes meeting hers.

“Talk to me,” Rey murmurs.

He breathes out loudly, shaking his head.

“I don’t know what to do,” he admits. “I… This is completely new to me, I don’t know how this is happening, or why, and I don’t know how to stop it, and I don’t know how to react to it. And I am… I’m scared.”

“Oh, Ben,” Rey breathes.

“You’re being remarkably calm, and I appreciate that,” Ben continues. “But I need to know that you’ve also understood how serious and potentially dangerous this is.”

“I do,” Rey says, hurriedly. “Like I said, what if Bail had been in the middle of a fight? You could’ve fallen into it completely unprepared, you could have easily been killed--”

“I don’t just mean for  _ me,” _ Ben interrupts. “I mean for you.”

They look at each other.

She knows it isn’t possible, knows he’s had no time to, but part of Rey is convinced that Ben and Finn have somehow managed to collude on this topic.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, and Ben gives her his best sardonic look.

“Look, I know you think… I know you’ve talked to Bail more than just about anyone else in the Resistance has,” he says. “And I know you’ve fought at his side, and watched him kill Snoke, and heard his grief and saw his tears over the death of my father. And more than that, I know  _ you, _ Rey, and your kind heart. You sympathize with others better than anyone else I know. And normally, that’s just a trait I really admire in you, but at this time, I need you to put it aside and focus on putting your guard up, instead. Think of him less as Bail and more as Kylo Ren.”

Rey is suddenly just as frustrated with Ben as she had been with Finn.

“Of course I know that,” she snaps. “I understand that. I know what he’s done.”

“So you understand that we have to make some changes, then?”

That gives her pause. “How do you mean?”

“Well, to start with…” He hesitates, looking down at his sock-clad feet as if they are suddenly riveting. “To start with, I think you should sleep in the bunk room with Jannah.”

Rey blinks.

Ben looks up at her.

The two of them look at each other, Ben still seated at the table, Rey standing in front of him.

Finally, she says: “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m perfectly serious.”

_ “Ben,” _ Rey breathes, shaking her head. “Look, it’s just… Can’t we take some time, and think about what this means, first--”

“I have no idea what’s compelling the switch,” Ben interrupts. “The first time, he was having dinner, and I was asleep. The second time, I was just going to look through some boxes for parts for Jannah’s lightsaber, and he was having sex. I can’t figure out what could have catalyzed the switches, what the pattern is. And until I do, I think I should take precautions. I think  _ we _ should take precautions, Rey.”

Rey takes a deep breath.

_ Breathe. Just, breathe. _

“I think that’s an overreaction,” she says. “We’ve shared a bed for five  _ years, _ Ben. I don’t want us to have to change that just because…”

She trails off.

There isn’t a way to end that sentence to win her any points.

“I’m not thrilled about it either,” he murmurs. “I’m  _ really _ not. But if this is escalating…”

He trails off.

There isn’t a good way, period, to end that sentence.

Rey breathes out through her nose.

“Okay,” she says. “Compromise. We sleep in the same space, but separately.”

“Both of us in the bunk room with Jannah?”

Rey nods. “She’ll probably think it a little strange, initially, but once she understands why I’m sure she won’t mind.”

Ben considers this.

She studies his face, the way his lips are quirked down in a thoughtful frown, brows drawn together in concentration. He suddenly looks very young, she thinks. Very exposed, and very vulnerable. The events of the day have shaken him in a way she hasn’t seen in a long time.

At last, he nods.

“That’s a fair compromise,” Ben decides. “Okay.”

He straightens, gently closing the book next to him, and setting it on the dejarik table. When he looks up again, it is to find Rey right in front of him, standing between his legs. He blinks up at her, as she reaches down, and brushes her hands through his hair.

“My love,” she whispers. “You’re going to be okay.  _ We _ are going to be okay.”

Ben looks at her.

And then he seems to collapse all at once, and he presses his head into her chest, his arms wrapping around her waist, fisting in her shirt. Rey leans down, laying her cheek on the top of his head, her arms tightening around his shoulders. She can feel him trembling in her arms.

“We’ve faced worse, you and I,” Rey murmurs. “We’ll get through this.”

She runs her fingers through his dark hair, noting the way her silver ring looks against the dark color.

“You have me,” she continues. “You’ll always have me. I won’t leave you.”

“I know,” Ben replies, nodding into her sternum. “I know.”

He looks up at her, blinking big eyes. Rey smiles, brushing his hair off his forehead.

“Don’t be afraid,” she says.

It was something he’d said to her before, before their separation on Takodana, and then their fight against Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren on Ilum, and then just before Rey set off to build her lightsaber. It’s something to be said as a form of comfort, as a reminder to be calm, as a reminder that they are not alone, that they have the other on their side.

Now, Ben nods. He reaches up, playing with the end of her braid.

“Don’t be afraid,” he repeats. “I know.”

They stay there for a minute more, leaning on each other.

Eventually, Rey leans down, pressing her mouth to his in an achingly tender kiss.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go to bed. Jannah’s already claimed one of the lower bunks, so you’ll have to decide between the other lower bunk or the top one.”

“The top one. If it’s Bail who wakes up, and not me, that’ll disorient him.”

Rey gives Ben a bland look.

He shrugs, a little helplessly.

“Compromise.”

Rey sighs.

“Fine,” she says. “At least I’ll get a laugh at your feet hanging off the end.”

This gets Ben to laugh, as she had hoped it would.

She loops her arm around his waist, and he hangs his around her shoulders, and they walk to the bunk room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben's descriptions of Old Jedi lightsabers and roles in the Old Order taken from THE JEDI PATH.
> 
> I was always surprised that no one commented on that moment in THAT LOOKING-GLASS ache where Ben seemed to have looked at Rey from Bail's eyes in the throne room. It seemed like a clear instance of WTF happening, and was my (poor) attempt at foreshadowing a bigger force (ha) at play. This story develops the concept--Bail and Ben switching bodies--further.
> 
> PSA: AO3 recently changed their hit-counting set-up due to a big increase in traffic (in quarantine, we all seek out fan fic), where non-registered users' hits don't count. This means authors have seen big decreases in hits, which can be discouraging. Any kudos or comments you can leave to tell me you are still reading is more valuable than ever.
> 
> Also: I have 9 invitations I can send, though I do need your email address to do it. If you want one, please feel free to message me on tumblr (I am theputterer there too) and I'll send it your way! **one of us, one of us**


	5. In The Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why are you showing us this?”

“Okay, so. The capital city of Lothal. Also known as Capital City. Or Lothal City.”

“Good names,” Rey says, barely managing to keep a straight face. Behind her, Jannah makes a muffled sound that Rey interprets as a _Tcha!_

Ben looks at Rey, unimpressed. “I’d tell you to offer your opinion on Lothal’s linguistics and naming system to a government official, but I was _getting_ to my point that we need to do our best to _avoid_ government officials.”

“Is the First Order here?” Jannah asks, alarmed. “I checked Resistance intel, and there wasn’t anything--”

“They don’t have an official foothold, no,” Ben confirms, giving Jannah a comforting nod. “But Lothal was aligned with the Empire, once. They traded their sovereignty in exchange for prosperity and protection, and paid dearly for it. They’re just now barely climbing out of their economic recession. If it weren’t for the long memories of its people, I’m sure Lothal would be knocking on the First Order’s door right about now. As it is, I expect there are still quite a few sympathisers for the First Order here, or just some people looking to make quick credits.” He glances between the two of them. “And I don’t need to tell either of you that Kylo Ren has a vested interest in capturing Jedi.”

They’ve got bounties on their heads, _actual_ bounties. Ben is worth twelve million credits, Rey is worth nine million, and Finn is worth five million. All dead or alive. Jannah has not yet been discovered by the Knights of Ren, which had been part of Rey’s determination to keep her hidden from Bail’s gaze in the _Falcon;_ but Rey is sure that as soon as they’re aware of her existence that the First Order will put a bounty on her head, too.

Ben had been deeply alarmed by the news of the bounty, until Leia had looked at him and said, calmly, _Twelve? The Empire wanted me for ten million after the Battle of Yavin. With inflation, that makes sense._

“Yes, Master,” Jannah says, abashed.

“All that being said,” Ben continues, “Our first stop here will be in the Capital City.”

“The Resistance is in the Capital?” Rey guesses.

Ben nods. “At the heart of all the action.”

He guides the nose of the _Millennium Falcon_ down, Rey moving beside him as co-pilot, Jannah clutching the back of her seat. Lothal is a brown and blue world, covered mostly in seas, mountains, marshes, and savannahs. Clouds shield the majority of the planet, and the _Falcon_ slips through them, moisture dotting the transparisteel window over the control panel.

The Capital City appears on the horizon, and Rey cannot help her awed gasp.

The city emerges over large dunes of sand as pillars of white. Hundreds of pearly white towers seem to make up the bulk of the city, spindly and thin, stretching up to the dark blue sky. The city itself stands at the edge of a large sea that is almost unnaturally calm, shadows of clouds and starships overhead reflecting on its surface. Rey leans forward in her seat, Jannah copying her movement, until the two of them are peering over the control panel of the _Falcon,_ to look into the city below, at all of the white buildings.

“It’s beautiful,” Rey whispers.

“Here’s to hoping the temperaments of its citizens are similarly lovely,” Ben says, piloting the _Falcon_ downwards, to join the throng of ships angling to land in the Port.

The landing procedure is straightforward, and Rey, Jannah, and Ben are disembarking the _Falcon_ within ten minutes of landing. Though the sun is bright overhead, the air itself is chilly, and Rey rolls down the sleeves of her dark blue shirt, zipping up the brown vest she’s wearing over it. She glimpses Ben zipping up his jacket, while Jannah pulls on her red leather coat, brushing her thin braided hair over to one shoulder.

Rey defers to Ben, walking at his side as he moves with purpose into the city, Jannah following in their steps. Jannah is carrying her beloved bow over one shoulder, and is staring impassively at anyone who gives her a doubletake for it, though not many do; this far in the Outer Rim, it’s more suspicious to find someone _not_ heavily armed.

And lightsabers would draw a whole lot of special attention. Aside from those more hidden weapons, Ben is carrying his DL-44 pistol in the holster on his thigh, while Rey’s NN-14 blaster, a gift from Ben over five years earlier, hangs at her hip.

They make their way through the city, and Rey can’t help but occasionally crane her neck up to take in the towering pillars around them. On the surface level are more manageable sized buildings, stores and shops and homes and bars, regular establishments common anywhere in the galaxy. She wonders who lives and works in the mysterious white towers.

Ben leads them to a small restaurant off the main paved road, and they duck inside. The restaurant is sparsely populated, only a few patrons at tables, and Rey glances curiously at them all. Ben had mentioned they’d be meeting their Resistance contact in a restaurant, but she has no idea what--

Rey’s quiet contemplation is halted by Jannah grabbing her arm. She turns.

Jannah’s brown eyes are wide. Silently, she jerks her chin at the back of the restaurant, with the take-out counter, and the menu hanging above it.

Rey reads the menu, and then her eye catches on the type of food this restaurant serves, and she understands Jannah’s concern.

 _“Mandalorian?”_ Rey hisses in an aside to Ben. “We’re in a Mandalorian restaurant?”

Ben gives her a _look,_ and doesn’t bother to answer. He walks purposefully to a booth near the main door, taking a seat. Rey and Jannah sit across from him.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Jannah whispers.

“Me too,” Rey snaps. “Ben, whose idea was this? Mandalorians _hate_ Jed--”

“I know,” Ben interrupts. “It wasn’t my idea. It was our contact’s. Poe relayed it to me just before we left. And of course he didn’t realize why it might not be the best idea for… us to be here.”

Rey carefully aligns herself so her lightsaber is not visible at her side to the room at large. “Who is this contact, exactly?”

“If they’re a Mandalorian, and this was all an elaborate set-up, do we have an escape plan?” Jannah asks.

Ben sighs.

A woman emerges from the kitchen and approaches them. She has dark brown hair and green eyes heavily framed in black makeup, her skin almost startlingly pale in comparison. Rey straightens as the woman reaches their table, a small notepad of paper in her hand. She studies them, looking from Rey to Jannah to Ben, and raises one perfectly shaped eyebrow.

“What’ll it be?” she asks, and Rey remembers they’re in a restaurant.

“A pot of Cassius tea for the table, please,” Ben says immediately. “And _gi_ dumpling soup, red gourd soup, and roba pie. Please.”

“Fine by me,” the woman replies, deadpan. She disappears back into the kitchen.

“Have you had Mandalorian food before?” Jannah asks, curious.

Ben nods. “My mother is fond of it.”

“Leia has always been more daring than most,” Rey mumbles, and Ben snorts.

“True,” he says. “But this particular order… Poe’s contact asked that we order this specific assortment of food. So they’ll recognize us.”

She watches as he drums his fingers on the table; a nervous tic of his that’s ever present. She reaches out, covering his hand with hers, and he gives her a guilty smile.

“Jannah,” Ben says, suddenly, his entire body stilling. “Reach out.”

“For what?” Jannah asks, but her spine is already stiffening, her palms flattening on the tabletop in order to concentrate.

“We’re being watched.”

“I wondered,” Rey says. There’s a prickling feeling along the back of her neck, one she only gets when someone--or something--is watching her without her awareness of who or what it is.

Jannah looks at the table, her eyes unfocusing.

Rey glances around the room.

There are a couple of men seated at a table across the room, playing a game of Novacrown while eating bowlfuls of some kind of stew that is still boiling even though it’s no longer over an open flame. A handful of Rodians are also in the restaurant, squabbling amongst themselves, knocking back glasses of a dark ale. Seated a few tables in front of the Jedi, next to a window, are three Devaronian women, identifiable by their red-brown skin and horned heads.

None of these individuals appear to be watching the Jedi.

“This city,” Jannah breathes, her eyes slipping shut.

“What about it?” Ben asks, studying her face.

“It’s… scarred,” Jannah whispers. “The earth is… blemished. Blood has been shed on every street. In the heart of the city is… an abyss. Or a cave? No. A hole.”

Ben nods. “The Empire built a huge structure in the middle of the Capital City. The Imperial Complex; it was the center of the Empire’s operations on the planet, and it overshadowed everything below it. Rebels managed to destroy the building about a year before the Battle of Yavin. I’m unsurprised the memory still remains. Some things are seared into time.”

The Force, Rey knows, is a conduit of memory.

As the Imperial Complex traumatized and harmed so many, its memory echoes in the Force. So much so that even many years later, Jannah is feeling the reverberations.

Jannah’s eyes snap open.

A moment later, the waitress returns, pushing a cart filled with their order. Rey watches as she unloads bowls and dishes, depositing them smoothly onto the table. Last to be delivered is a magnificent silver kettle, which she carefully places in the center of the table.

“Anything else?” the waitress asks.

“Yes,” Jannah says, to Rey’s surprise. Jannah looks up at the woman. “Will you be joining us now?”

The waitress blinks.

And then she smiles, her thin mouth curving upwards.

“Dameron wasn’t kidding,” she comments. “Jedi, indeed.”

With that, she slides onto the bench next to Ben, who automatically shuffles back to accommodate her. The woman reaches out, and begins pouring them all tea.

“I’m Zorii,” she says. “Zorii Bliss. I’m a member of the Lothal Resistance.”

“You know Poe,” Ben says, and it is not a question.

“And I know _you,”_ Zorii replies. _“The Righteous Man.”_

Rey watches as red darkens Ben’s face, before she’s distracted by Zorii turning her sharp green eyes onto her.

“And Rey of Nowhere,” Zorii says. “The Jedi From the Wastelands.”

“That’s me,” Rey says, deadpan, and Zorii smirks.

Her smirk quickly turns into a frown as she studies Jannah.

“You…” she tilts her head. “I haven’t heard of you.”

“Not yet,” Jannah says, without missing a beat. Rey feels a warm rush of affection for her apprentice, while Zorii cackles.

“You can stay,” she declares. She inclines her head at the food. “Eat up.”

They dish up, Zorii loading up her own bowl alongside them. Rey half-expects someone from the kitchens to poke their head out and ask when she’s coming back to work, but there is silence from the back of the restaurant. Though, there also aren’t any new patrons to be served… 

Zorii catches Rey’s repeated glances.

“I don’t really work here,” she explains. “The owner and I have an arrangement.”

“What kind of arrangement?”

“I sell him spice for a discount, and he lets me use his restaurant to meet contacts.”

Ben pauses, spoon halfway to his mouth. “You’re a spice runner.”

“Aye,” Zorii says, droll. “The Spice Runners of Lothal. Have you ever heard of us?”

“I have, actually.”

Zorii is not the only one surprised. Rey is, too. Ben notices her bemused look.

“I was a cargo hauler for six years,” Ben says, quietly, and understanding washes through Rey. “I worked independently of the main companies, so sometimes I’d move product that was… less than legal.”

“Were you one of ours?” Zorii asks, intrigued.

Ben shakes his head. “No, I never made it to Lothal. But I went to Kessel a couple times. Your reputation precedes you there.”

“They’ve got a lot of interesting varieties of spice on Kessel,” Zorii comments. “Did you ever use?”

“No.”

Zorii looks doubtful, and Ben meets her gaze.

“I was already extremely paranoid during that time of my life,” Ben says. “I didn’t need to add a spice habit to that and make it even worse.”

Ben is paranoid still, even in this current time of his life. 

“Fair,” Zorii says. She’s studying Ben with newfound interest now; the Jedi Master who used to be a cargo hauler who smuggled spice was certainly not what she was expecting.

“So it was your idea for us to meet you here?” Rey checks.

“Oh, yes.”

“Even with how the Mandalorians feel about… our kind,” Rey says, rather than say the word _Jedi_ aloud.

“Oh, that was precisely _why,”_ Zorii says. “Your crowd has a certain… stature. There are a lot of mixed feelings around your ancient, hokey religion, especially here in the Outer Rim. Any of your… kind, that would get involved with a rebellion, I thought, needed to be studied. Needed to be tested. I wanted to see what you’d do if you were invited into a place you knew could play out badly for you.”

Rey blinks. “And?”

“And you just walked in,” Zorii says.

“Good?” Jannah wonders.

“Really good,” Zorii confirms. “None of you were what I was expecting. You walked into a Mandalorian restaurant so casually. You don’t even dress like the Old Order.”

This is, of course, by design. But Zorii doesn’t know that.

“So,” she says, slurping up squash loudly. Rey wonders if this is what she looks and sounds like when she eats, too. “What brings you all to Lothal?”

Ben sets down his spoon, and pushes his bowl away. “We’re looking for a Temple.”

He says _a_ Temple, but his demeanor says _The_ Temple. Similarly, Zorii stops eating.

“Ah,” she says. “Should’ve guessed.”

“Do you know where it is?” Rey asks, leaning forward.

“Everyone who’s anyone on this rock knows where it is,” Zorii replies. “Especially now.”

“What do you mean?”

“You aren’t the first crew this month who has come to Lothal asking about the Temple.”

This is news to the Jedi. Rey and Jannah exchange a glance, while Ben’s hand tightens into a fist on the tabletop.

“The Knights of Ren were here?” he guesses.

“A woman and a man,” Zorii replies. As she speaks, she reaches into a pocket of her dark leather jacket, procuring a datapad. She sets it on the table, and Ben, Rey, and Jannah lean in to look at it. An image appears on the screen: two people dressed in head-to-toe black, capes and tunics and all. The man is a Thranta Rider, with pale yellow skin and a bald head lined in red tattoos; the woman is human, with short blonde hair arranged in a bob cut and icy green eyes.

“Celosia Ren and Fallow Ren,” Rey murmurs, and Ben nods in confirmation.

Formerly known as Jedi Knight Vesper Tille and Jedi Apprentice Lior Baydowl. Two of Ben’s surviving classmates from his days at Luke’s Temple on Devaron.

“Did they find out where the Temple is?” Ben asks.

“Yep,” Zorii replies. “They asked the right people. I’m not convinced they got in, though.”

“Why?”

“The thing is, there isn’t much of a Temple _left,”_ Zorii explains. “There was some kind of accident involving the Temple during the Imperial Era. The Empire was up there doing some very fishy work on the place, and the Lothal Rebellion took them on. Between the two of them, the Temple was destroyed. More or less.”

Ben frowns. “More or less?”

“Every now and then, there are these… echoes.”

“Echoes?” Rey prompts.

Zorii shrugs. “Listen, I don’t give a flying kriff about the _Force_ or _magic_ or whatnot. But I’ve been up near where the Temple used to be, and… I dunno. I’ve heard things.”

For the first time since they’ve met her, Zorii looks uncomfortable. It’s enough to intrigue Rey.

She looks over, and sees the resolution mirrored on Ben’s face.

“Zorii,” he says, politely. “Will you tell us how we can get to this Temple?”

* * *

Zorii declines their invitation to join them at the Temple. Ben isn’t surprised, nor does he blame her; if she’s so determined to remain neutral towards the Force and its so-called magic, then going to an Ancient Jedi Temple with the remaining Jedi probably seems like a bad idea.

She does sketch out a pretty detailed map for them.

“Go north,” she says, scribbling furiously on a napkin, as Ben, Rey, and Jannah watch. “About sixty miles, until you start seeing snow. You’ll find a cluster of mountains. The Temple is underneath. Or what’s left of it is, I should say.”

She folds the napkin up, and gives it to Ben.

“What do we owe you, for your advice?” he asks.

Leia and Poe had been noncommittal about what exactly their Lothal contact was going to want in exchange for their help.

But Zorii only shrugs.

“Pay for this meal, and we’re even,” she says. At the surprised looks around her, she says, _“Resistance,_ remember? We’re all here for the same cause. Besides. Maybe helping out some Jedi will give me good karma. The universe owes me, big time.”

Ben pays for their meal without comment.

Zorii walks with them back to the spaceport. She and Rey walk close together, speaking quietly, while Ben slips back to speak with Jannah.

“I think our best bet to find a kyber crystal for you lies either in or near the Temple,” he says. “The Jedi never _randomly_ chose a location for their Temples. There is a reason they chose the mountains they built the Temple in, and the ground underneath. There could be a promising cluster of kyber crystals under the earth.”

“But what about whatever the Empire was up to?” Jannah asks, worried. “What if they were mining up all the crystals?”

“They could’ve been,” Ben agrees. It happened with plenty of worlds, including Jedha. “And maybe that’s why those rebels destroyed the Temple, to prevent the theft. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing left; nor that the Temple will not be willing to give up its secrets to the Jedi who ask.”

Jannah nods, thoughtful.

They slip back into the spaceport, largely unacknowledged. While Rey and Jannah march into the _Millennium Falcon,_ powering the ship on, Ben lingers on the entry ramp to speak with Zorii.

“Thank you,” he says. “For your help. And your courtesy.”

She nods. “I meant what I said. None of you are what I expected. _Especially_ you.”

“How so?”

Zorii smirks. “Never thought I’d meet a Jedi Master that I might consider going on a spice run with.”

Ben laughs, and Zorii’s grin widens.

“One last thing,” she says. “Is it really true that Dameron’s been dating the same person for five years?”

“Even worse, I’m afraid,” Ben replies. “He’s been dating the same _Jedi Knight_ for five years.”

“Ugh. Can’t catch a break.”

“Should I tell him you say hello?”

Zorii considers it. “Nah. Let him wonder.”

With one somewhat sarcastic-looking salute, she turns, and walks away. Ben goes the other way, into the ship.

Rey looks up at him as he sits in the pilot’s seat. “I like her.”

Ben smiles. “Me too.”

* * *

Zorii, Rey thinks, has an alternate career path as a cartographer should she ever decide to leave her life as a spice runner. Going by their very short meeting, Rey doesn’t think she’s interested.

But the map she made for them to direct them to the Ancient Jedi Temple is impressive.

“There should be a… um, rhombus-shaped lake due north,” Jannah says, frowning down at the scrap of napkin.

“Rhombus-shaped lake, check,” Ben confirms, as they fly over a lake that is exactly that. He glances at Rey, clearly amused. “How far are we from the port?”

“Fifty-four miles,” Rey says, checking their progress on the nav computer. “And--”

 _“Oh,”_ Jannah breathes.

Rey looks up.

Giant, spherical striped rocks have appeared below. Some are clustered together in small groups, while a few are scattered more sporadically, isolated, separate from the others. Also present on the ground is snow, a thin layer, only appearing in some places and not covering everything.

“This,” Ben murmurs, studying the landscape, “is interesting.”

“It’s here somewhere?” Jannah says, her voice lilting at the end in a question. “Where--”

She breaks off.

Ahead is a massive crater in the earth, like something huge smashed into the fragile surface and left a scarred hole. The crater is unnatural, though, blacked out and cracked, the rock marred by clear scars that could only have been left behind by drills. A man-made cataclysm.

“I’d say there,” Rey whispers.

Ben sets the _Falcon_ down in the thin snow about fifty yards away from the crater. The three of them pull their jackets back on, and take up their weapons, Jannah making sure to grab their spare lightsaber that she’s been practicing with.

They exit the _Falcon,_ and begin the walk across the plain.

The sky above is a murky gray, the bright sun hidden away by the thick clouds. Rey listens to the sounds of the snow and frost crunching under her boots, noises echoed by Ben and Jannah’s footsteps. A soft breeze blows across the ground to them, ruffling her braid and jacket. The air is incredibly clean, no hint of fuel or pollution or anything unnatural; only pure, wild mountain air.

They walk in silence until they reach the edge of the crater.

Ben drops into a crouch, his fingers brushing the rocky cliffedge. Jannah steps to the very edge, peering down below, her wavy hair buffeted up by the wind. Rey stands between them, and looks down.

The crater’s existence is even more devastating up close. Singe marks line the surface like scratches from an unruly beast, while pieces of machines are scattered aimlessly, other metal debris littering the ground as well. It looks truly like there was a terrible accident that leveled a building site, and Rey supposes that for the Empire, that’s exactly what happened here.

What is painfully clear: There is no sign of a Temple for the Jedi.

“Zorii said it would be underground,” Ben says, quietly. “We should go down there.”

They do, slipping and sliding their way into the crater. They clamber over rocks and skid down ravines, often relying on the Force to prevent themselves from plunging to a painful death. After ten minutes of frenzied and difficult trekking, they reach the bottom of the crater.

Rey is prepared to suggest they reach into the Force for guidance, until she catches sight of a pile of rocks, and a gap in the crater, a hole leading into the earth.

The three of them look at each other.

“The Knights?” Jannah asks, voicing their shared thought.

“I’d be surprised if they made it _into_ the Temple,” Ben muses, looking into the darkness. “But it probably is a good place to start.”

He retrieves a glowrod from his satchel, and switches it on, Rey and Jannah hurrying to copy him with their own.

The three of them march into the darkness.

Rey is anticipating to hear sounds common to other caves she’s been in, noises like dripping water, nocturnal critters running about, or shuffling rock. But under the crust of Lothal is only silence. No water, no creatures, no wind, no movement of any kind.

She turns her focus inward.

 _Breathe,_ Rey thinks, a common mantra. _Just breathe._

The darkness beckons.

* * *

Ben is starting to wish he’d taken note of the time when they’d gone underground.

The darkness is oppressive, and only thickening. He continues to walk forward, comforted by the sounds of Rey and Jannah’s even breathing behind him.

He takes another step.

And freezes.

Rey runs into his back, so sudden is his stop.

“Ben? What--”

But she stills as well, feeling what he’s felt that has drawn him to a complete standstill.

“Oh,” Rey whispers. _“Oh._ Jannah, can you--”

“I feel it,” Jannah confirms, awed.

“It’s a vergence,” Ben says, unnecessarily.

There are several places in the galaxy where the Force is concentrated around a particular location. These places include the planet Zakuul, the wreckage of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the Valley of the Jedi on Ruusan, and a mirror cave on Ahch-To. And now, evidently, under the earth on Lothal, where the Old Jedi Temple once stood.

“This is why they built this Temple here,” Rey says.

“Yes,” Ben agrees.

He walks forward.

The cavern has opened up, revealing a larger, empty space. At last is a hint of decoration and design: sizable piles of tile are scattered around the ground, clearly having been part of bigger images that fell apart as the Temple crumbled. The tiles are all in black or white, and the Jedi stand among them, looking around at the fallen artwork.

“Interesting color choice,” Ben murmurs.

Black and white; dark and light.

Mixed together chaotically.

Ben bends down, brushing his hand through the tiles. He turns one over, and finds himself staring at what is unmistakably an eye, tiled in red and black.

 _Whose eye were you?_ He wonders, but there is no answer.

Or, maybe there is; two soft growls echo in the cavern.

Ben immediately straightens, as the sound of lightsabers igniting comes from behind him, two beams of green and a beam of light blue reflecting off the dark walls. Wordlessly, Ben stretches his arm out, palm down, and Rey and Jannah follow his direction and don’t attack.

Instead, they look at the two massive wolves in front of them.

Identical silver wolves with yellow eyes, sharp and terrifying claws clicking on the stone ground of the cave. The wolves study the Jedi impassively, and they do not move to attack; they only stare.

Ben knows, as sure as he knows anything, that these wolves are not here to harm them.

He drops to his knees, resting his hands on his thighs.

“My name is Ben,” he says. “I am Master of the New Jedi Order. With me is Rey, a Knight, and her apprentice, Jannah. Jannah seeks a kyber crystal to build her lightsaber with. And I seek revelation. The Force is tying me to a Dark Sider, and I don’t understand why.”

To anyone who is not Force-sensitive, he knows he would look absolutely ridiculous, speaking to wolves.

But he thinks they understand him.

He _knows_ they do.

One of the wolves stalks forward, big yellow eyes blinking at Ben, just a foot in front of him, before turning, locking on Jannah. The wolf approaches her, until the two of them are staring at each other.

And then the wolf walks away, moving to a smaller gap in the cave wall.

Jannah watches the wolf, and then turns to Ben, her eyes wide.

He gives her a nod.

“Here,” he says, and he reaches into his rucksack, retrieving the cloaked binary beacon stored there. He tosses it to Jannah, who takes it, pulling it around her wrist, while Ben does the same with its twin on his own wrist. “Press the button when you’ve collected a crystal, and we’ll meet up here. And Jannah? If there’s more than one, grab a couple more. We could always do with a spare or two.”

He just broke Evoleth Ren’s lightsaber on Mantooine; lightsabers can so easily be destroyed.

Jannah nods.

She looks at Rey, who takes a step forward--

The wolf _growls._

Rey freezes.

Jannah looks at Rey, and the wolf, and back.

“I guess I’m going alone,” she says.

“Guess so,” Rey says, an eyebrow raised at the wolf, which doesn’t so much as blink back. Rey looks at her apprentice. “Trust the Force. But if you need us, reach out. Okay?”

“Yes, Master,” Jannah breathes.

And with that, she turns, and follows the wolf into a cave behind them.

Rey looks at Ben, and he turns back to the remaining wolf.

“Help me,” he whispers. “Please.”

The wolf blinks.

And then it turns around, and walks the other way, into the dark.

Ben stands, and follows it, Rey copying his steps.

* * *

The Force has asked a lot of Rey, but _this;_ following a _wolf_ into the _dark_ of an _unknown cave._ This is really testing her.

She bites her lip to refrain from asking Ben the hundred questions on her tongue.

The wolf is clearly doing something to fulfill his request, and for whatever reason, it hadn’t wanted her to go with her apprentice, but to follow Ben. She’s torn between thinking this is to do with the solitary nature of collecting a focusing crystal for a lightsaber, and thinking it has to do with whatever the wolf is preparing to show Ben.

Eventually, the narrow passageway opens up.

They walk into a room filled with _light._

More fine tiled art decorates the walls, and Rey gawks at it. Thin figures shaped in colors of all varieties line the walls, human and alien, young and old, male and female and other. 

The wolf has stopped under one of these mosaics. Rey and Ben walk forward, stilling in unison as they see the picture the wolf has paused at; because it’s familiar. Because they’ve seen it before.

The Prime Jedi, like the mosaic found in the Temple on Ahch-To.

“Why are you showing us this?” Ben asks, but the wolf does not reply.

There are a couple key differences. This Prime Jedi is set in much nicer tile than the one on Ahch-To, the tile here a gleaming white and abyss-like black, astonishingly clean for being so far underground and untouched for so long. Additionally, the Prime Jedi’s hands are not together, wrapped around a lightsaber. Instead, they are held in separate directions; on the dark side, the Jedi holds a kind of staff, while on the light side, they hold an open flame.

The most glaring difference is that the separation of black and white is not as clear as it had been with the Prime Jedi on Ahch-To; black and white tiles are scattered in their opposite side.

While Ben remains fixated on this figure, Rey moves on. She stares in amazement at all the art, when a splash of gold catches her eye.

A figure of a woman highlighted in gold is on the far wall. She stands alone, hands loose at her sides, head cocked, like someone has just called her name. Across from her stands a male figure highlighted in silver, watching her, about ten feet away from her. Between them are clouds of fog, and an odd, ornate bronze archway. Behind the man is a doorway.

“It’s a myth,” Ben says.

He’s seen what has caught her attention, and stands next to her, the two of them looking at the mural.

“A myth?” Rey repeats.

“I just read it,” Ben explains. He has a strange look on his face. “In the text you and Finn found on Ord Canfre.”

_“Really?”_

Ben nods, thoughtful. “Yeah. You know the text is titled _Ways of the Cosmic Force?”_

Rey nods.

“Well,” Ben says. “I haven’t gotten very far into it, but I’m not sure it’s really… practical. It’s a lot of stories, about death, and Force ghosts, and the Netherworld of the Force. Legends and myths.”

“All of that from a text found in a Jedi school?”

“The Exploration Corps were the researchers and archaeologists of the Old Jedi Order,” Ben murmurs. “It’s possible someone was compiling myths and legends as part of a history project.”

“Doesn’t _Ways_ imply… functionality?”

Ben shrugs. “Maybe. But the stories I’ve read so far are… _not_ functional, or practical at all.”

“Try me. What’s the story of this mural?”

“The woman--and I don’t know if I’m saying her name right, but in Basic it’d be written as _Tesni,_ so let’s go with that--is dead. She died a week earlier. And the man--same thing, but his name is _Hilal--_ has gone… beyond shadows to find her.”

“Beyond shadows?” Rey echoes, frowning.

Ben shrugs. “That’s my best translation. I know it’s weird. Like I said; a story.”

“Okay. Hilal has gone… beyond shadows to find Tesni. Then what?”

“He calls her name,” Ben continues. “And because they’re a dyad--”

“A dyad?”

“Oh, uh, it’s this… this belief that there are two people whose souls are so close and so ideal for one another that though they’re two separate people physically, in an astral sense, they are one. A dyad.”

Rey stares. “That isn’t a Jedi teaching.”

Ben laughs. “Absolutely not, though it does appear in other cultures and religions. But like I said; a story. Can I continue?”

“Yes, please.”

“Okay, so, Hilal calls her name, and because they’re a dyad, Tesni hears him. She turns around, and walks back to him. The author of the story implies that the only reason Tesni heard him is because they’re a dyad. She wouldn’t hear anyone else, and eventually, she’d be too far gone into the Netherworld to be brought back to life, and so she’d just rest, at peace. Which doesn’t sound bad, of course. But Hilal is still alive, and he wants her to be alive, too.”

“Understandable,” Rey murmurs.

“Right. So, he calls her name, and she turns around, and then… They leave the Netherworld and she’s alive again.”

“Just like that?” Rey asks, surprised. “That easily?”

Ben eyes her. “It’s a _story.”_

“Yes… one with a happy ending,” Rey decides.

“Yeah.”

She looks at him. “But what is a _story,_ a _myth,_ doing on the walls of a Jedi Temple?”

Ben’s smile is wry. “I’ve absolutely no idea.” He turns, and calls, “Hey--”

But the wolf is gone.

There is no sign of it being there, no hint of tracks or anything else. Only Ben, Rey, and the poor light of their glowrods, and the odd inherent light seemingly emanating from the art on the walls.

They exchange a glance, and then separate, studying the other art.

These figures are more familiar, cloaked and robed people wielding lightsabers, a few levitating in Rising Meditation, some relying on the Force for healing. There is an older Jedi outlined in light blue tiles, a clear depiction of a Force ghost.

“Oh, wow.”

Rey turns around.

Directly next to the dyad imagery, Ben has paused in front of a fantastic bit of mosaic art depicting what appears to be clusters of black holes, highlighted in dark purple. The mural is massive, stretching from the floor to ceiling, and beautifully designed. In the middle of the scene is a small gold-colored disc, standing out jarringly from the purples and blues surrounding it.

Rey walks over to get a better look.

“What is this?” she asks.

“It’s the Maw.”

Her eyes widen, comprehension sinking in. “The black holes cluster?”

“Yeah,” Ben murmurs. “I saw it once, when I was a teenager. My father took my brother and me to see it. He flew us through it.”

“Han _flew through_ the Maw?”

“Han flew through the Maw,” Ben confirms. “He’d done it before, when he was trying to escape a squad of Imperial TIE fighters after a botched job on Kessel; this was when he was quite young, he’d barely flown the _Falcon_ before, had just recently met Lando. He managed to lose the squadron inside the Maw, nearly getting sucked into the gravity well as he did.”

Rey knows she shouldn’t be surprised to hear Han Solo successfully navigated the Maw. It fits his reputation, as ace pilot and legendary explorer. But still; it is very impressive.

“When Bail and I were thirteen, he took us to see it, flew us through it, in the _Falcon,”_ Ben says. “He showed us how to navigate it. And it’s… It’s incredible. An absolutely massive, extraordinary thing to see. Extremely dangerous, of course; Mom blew a gasket when she found out we hadn’t actually gone to watch a podrace tournament on Boonta.”

Rey laughs, picturing it, before returning her focus to the mural.

“What’s the thing in the middle?” she asks, pointing to the gold object.

Ben shrugs. “I don’t know. But I need to write all this down.”

He drops to his knees, retrieving his battered notebook from his rucksack, and opening it up to the first clean page. It is Ben’s twelfth notebook in five years, each one filled with his notes and thoughts regarding the Jedi, the Force, and the lore surrounding them both. 

Ben flattens the notebook down, turning his gaze back up to the art. As she watches, he carefully begins to sketch it out.

Rey wanders away.

The art on the other side of the Maw mosaic, past the dyad myth, is more abstract than any of the other art in the room. There is a scene of a clear, lovely blue fountain in a white courtyard; a dark pool in an ugly grotto; a lake shrouded in gray fog; and a large black stone throne, empty, no one sitting on it.

Or; maybe someone is.

Rey frowns, narrowing her gaze.

There appears to be someone sitting on the throne, a sketch of a person in dark robes. Rey steps closer, and stretches her arm out, barely aware of doing so.

Her fingers brush the tile.

* * *

_“No! Come back, come back!”_

_“Quiet, girl.”_

_The sand is unforgiving, rough, and hard._

_Her little legs struggle through it._

_The heat is oppressive._

_She stumbles, falls to her knees._

_“Come back, come back…”_

_A shadow slips over her._

_A hand rests on the back of her head, over her hair._

_Lips press to her forehead in a tender kiss._

_She blinks, turning her head, and catches a glimpse of a pale hand, a tall man whose face she cannot see due to the glare of the Jakku sun--_

_“The sun will keep you safe.”_

* * *

“Rey! Rey, can you hear me? Open your eyes, honey, I’m right here.”

“Ben,” Rey mumbles into the dark. “Ben.”

“Yes, it’s me. Open your eyes.”

Rey opens her eyes.

Ben is peering down at her. She realizes she’s sprawled on the hard gray stone of the cave floor, lying awkwardly, like she’s abruptly fallen. Her head is pillowed in Ben’s lap, and he’s leaning over her, looking concerned.

“Are you okay?” he demands. “I don’t know what happened. I heard a _thunk,_ and when I looked over, you were passed out on the ground.”

“Ben,” Rey repeats.

Fear darkens Ben’s face. “And you keep repeating my name. Rey… You can hear me, right? You know who I am?”

She nods. “Yes. It was you.”

“What was me?”

She grabs Ben’s hand where it’s flat on her stomach, wrapping it up in hers. With her other hand, she reaches up, and touches his face.

His hand; so familiar. His silhouette; just as familiar, just as beloved.

_“The sun will keep you safe.”_

“Your voice,” she whispers. “You were there with me. On Jakku. You were the person who told me ‘the sun will keep you safe.’ It was _you,_ Ben. This whole time, it was you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't like Zorii in TROS because she was a character with zero motivation and no consistent goals. She's recast here. Her initial gig as a waitress is a shoutout to Keri Russell's great work in WAITRESS.
> 
> I've never actually seen any of the animated STAR WARS shows (I know) so I'll plead creative license for my descriptions of Lothal and the Temple. 
> 
> The "myth" Ben describes, while giving off big Orpheus and Eurydice vibes, was actually based off a plot in the GUARDIANS OF TIME series by Marianne Curley. In that series, it was soulmates, not dyads. *Let's! Get! MYTHICAL!*
> 
> Someone commented at the end of THAT LOOKING-GLASS ACHE that they were looking forward to finding out what the deal is with this recurring... language? I guess? of "the sun will keep you safe" and "stars die all the time" that has repeated in this series. We're gonna do it!


	6. Glimpse The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: discussion of suicidal thoughts.

The kyber crystals are of varying sizes. Two of them are relatively thin, while the third is a bit pudgier. One of them is longer than the width of Jannah’s palm, while another is only the length of her middle finger, and the third is almost the length of two of her pinkies combined. Ben studies the crystals as Jannah tips them into his open hand.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs.

“I think so, too,” Jannah agrees.

She looks prouder than he’s ever seen her look, her eyes bigger than normal, and shining in the stilted sunlight, Lothal’s sun straining to reach them from behind the grim gray clouds.

“Which one are you planning to build your sword with?” Ben asks.

“This one,” Jannah says, plucking the one about the size of the length of her palm out of his hand. “It feels… warmer to me, than the others. I think it’s mine.”

“Trust your instincts,” Ben advises.

Jannah nods. “Am I building my lightsaber here, or back on base?”

“Base, I think,” Ben says. “Rey’s not, um… feeling too well.”

He glances back at the  _ Millennium Falcon _ as he speaks. The ship is powered on, rumbling, and he pictures Rey sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, setting their course back to Ajan Kloss.

They have not had much time to talk since Rey woke up from her sudden faint in the Temple underground; Jannah had signaled on her binary beacon that she was ready to go, and Rey had left the Temple to meet up with her, while Ben finished sketching the art on the walls in his notebook. But Ben has gathered enough to understand that Rey saw some kind of vision when she touched the mosaics on the Temple’s walls, and that the vision included her childhood on Jakku, and the mysterious person who’d told her the words she’s clung to her whole life.

_ “The sun will keep you safe.” _

Now, she thinks it was him; the person who’d said the words to her.

Ben can’t see how this is possible.

Jannah follows him into the ship, cradling her kyber crystal in her hands, while Ben tucks the other two into his rucksack. They find Rey in the cockpit; she only gives Ben a brief nod before turning to Jannah, her mouth lifting in a wide grin.

“Ready to build your sword?” she asks.

_ “So _ ready,” Jannah declares, and Rey laughs, and Ben smiles. They take off, flying above the crater below, the Jedi Temple buried miles underneath is cracked surface, filled with ghosts and wolves and art and maybe something more.

* * *

Rey knows she can’t avoid him forever. And she doesn’t really want to. She just has no idea what to say, where to begin.

_ “The sun will keep you safe.” _

The words reverberate in her memory, as they always have, but they have a voice attached to them now. A low voice, with a familiar timbre, and an Inner Rim accent. A voice she has heard so much over the last five years, when it has called her name, offered her instruction, whispered to her over sheets in the dead of night, calmly directed her in battle, asked if she’s eaten enough. A voice she has loved so very much.

Ben’s voice.

Hearing the words in his voice now; it feels so right. Like a missing piece has been properly fitted in a picture Rey still can’t quite make out.

While Jannah settles onto her bunk, to begin meditating in peace with her new crystal, Rey and Ben sit in the cockpit, and look at each other.

“Please describe what you saw,” Ben says.

“It was the same memory, same as it’s always been,” Rey whispers. “Prefaced by my voice screaming for my family to come back, and Plutt telling me to be quiet. And then it changed; I was in the desert, feeling miserable, and lost. I fell into the sand. I thought about not getting up.”

She says this last part very quietly.

She is not ashamed of her momentary suicidal ideation; and she would never feel ashamed in telling Ben of it, as he has often described the suicidal thoughts he entertained during his six years of solitude. It is simply still hard to talk about, to picture that tiny girl, that child, thinking of how much easier it would be to be dead.

“Normally, in my memory, I’d hear the words,” Rey says. “Without any real, discernible voice attached. But this time… This time, there was a hand on my hair. And lips on my forehead. And a silhouette. And it was  _ you, _ Ben. I saw your actual hand, I’d recognize it anywhere. And I felt your mouth on my skin, and of course it was yours, you’re the only one who’s ever kissed me, I know what you feel like. And it was your silhouette, your chin, your nose, your hair. And your voice. You said those words to me. ‘The sun will keep you safe.’ And for the first time ever… It felt  _ right. _ Like the memory had finally been realized.”

She’s gripping the edge of her seat tightly, like the  _ Falcon _ is about to dive straight into a nebula.

Ben, for his part, watches in silence.

He studies her face.

“Rey,” Ben murmurs. “Rey, you must know. It wasn’t me.”

“It  _ was.” _

He’s shaking his head.

“It’s not possible,” Ben continues. “First off; when you were five years old, abandoned on Jakku, I was ten years old, and had just started training with Luke on Devaron. To this day, I’ve never actually set foot on Jakku.”

“You weren’t a child,” Rey interjects. “You were an adult, as I’ve known you.”

Ben frowns. “That makes even less sense. How could I have been there?”

“I don’t know,” Rey admits. “The Force… took you there?”

He looks skeptical, a frown thinning his mouth. “Not… likely? Or possible, really. There’s no such thing as time travel.”

“As far as we know.”

Ben’s frown deepens. “As far as we know. But, look, Rey… Supposing time travel  _ was _ possible. Think of how incredibly dangerous it would be. How easy it would be to make a tiny change, and ruin so much. And, similarly to that: Rey, why would I travel back in time just to tell you those words? Why would I do that? Why wouldn’t I go back and prevent your parents from leaving you? Or, even, taking you away from Plutt? Why wouldn’t I get you and take you to the Temple on Devaron, to train with us?”

Rey pictures it.

She thinks of herself then, five years old, exhausted and dehydrated and miserable in the sand.

A dark shadow slides over her, and it is Ben, thirty years old, with his kind eyes and warm smile.

How he would scoop her up, and carry her away from the desert. How he would fly them to Devaron, and deposit her at the feet of Luke Skywalker and his twin ten year old nephews, who’d only started their Jedi training a year earlier.

She imagines, for a moment, how her life would be different if she and Ben had met as children.

“I could have died in the Temple,” Rey muses. “The night Bail burned it down. He, or one of the others, could have killed me. Or…” She swallows. “Maybe I would have gone with him.”

It had been easy to decline Bail’s plea that she join him five years earlier, because she loves Ben, and she had spent so much of her life working for herself, to be true to her own beliefs and goodness. But if she didn’t have that; that lifelong endurance, that stubborn streak engrained by being surrounded by so much cruelty. Perhaps she would have made a different choice, at fourteen years old, how old she was when the Temple was on fire a half a galaxy away.

“I love you very much, Rey,” Ben says, softly. “But I just don’t understand why I would risk so much just to tell you ‘the sun will keep you safe.’”

“Perhaps you weren’t  _ really _ there, then,” Rey says, thoughtfully.

“How do you mean?”

“Maybe you were…”

She trails off.

Ben watches her, and when she doesn’t speak, he prompts: “Rey?”

Cold seeps through her, and her tight grip on her seat tightens further. She avoids Ben’s bewildered gaze, focusing instead on the control panel in front of her, the nav computer showing the  _ Falcon’s _ trek through Deep Space.

_ Is this it? _ She thinks.  _ Is this the moment I tell him? _

She is saved from answering by a shrill ringing noise.

A holocall coming through.

Ben frowns at her, but turns to answer the call.

Rey is out of her seat and the cockpit before she can hear him say hello.

* * *

Utterly taken aback by Rey’s sudden silence and rapid departure, Ben thinks about ignoring the call and chasing after her. But if he’s learned one thing in his five years as part of Resistance High Command, and in his thirty years as Leia Organa’s son; if a holocall is coming in, you answer it.

He turns, and hits the communicator button, pulling the headset over his head.

“You’ve reached Corellian Spike,” he calls.

_ “Hey, Corellian Spike. Bey Station calling.” _

“Hi,” Ben breathes, grinning. “How’s it going?”

He hasn’t heard from Kes Dameron, Poe’s father, in several months.

_ “Going well,” _ Kes replies, and he sounds good, his normal cheer and gruffness.  _ “Say, I just chatted with Black One, and he told me you might be coming up in my neck of the galaxy. Interested in dropping by for a quick visit? I’ve got a few folks here who’d love to see you.” _

Yavin IV is about halfway between Lothal and Ajan Kloss. They were planning on passing near the system on their way back anyway, and the  _ Falcon _ will need to stop for fuel at some point, and maybe it would be better for Jannah to build her lightsaber somewhere that is not the Resistance main base…

And maybe being surrounded by so much warmth and friendliness will return Rey to her normal demeanor, pull her out of the funk she’s fallen into since experiencing the vision with his voice in the Temple.

“Bey Station,” Ben says. “That’s a great idea. Count on us touching down in about ten hours.”

* * *

Yavin IV emerges from Deep Space looking like a clump of moss. The moon is a dark green, splattered with rich blue, the jungles and the seas illustrated from so far away. Rey can’t help her wide smile at the sight of it; she’s visited Yavin IV loads of times over the last five years, yet each initial glimpse of it never fails to elicit joy.

Judging from Ben and Jannah’s similar grins, they share the feeling.

The  _ Millennium Falcon _ slips down through the thin clouds of Yavin IV, flying smoothly over acres and acres of rainforest.

“Finn is going to be so mad he missed this,” Jannah murmurs.

“Absolutely,” Rey agrees, a twinge of guilt rolling through her gut.

“I called him already,” Ben says, and both women look at him, surprised. Ben shrugs. “Him and Poe. Since we’re on Poe’s homeworld, visiting his dad, and the kids… It wouldn’t be fair to purposefully exclude them.”

“Are they coming?”

Ben nods. “I could hear Poe throwing clothes around in the background to pack.”

Rey laughs at the imagery, her excitement growing.

Time on Yavin IV, with the kids, and almost everyone she loves? It’s ideal.

The village of Primaver emerges on the horizon, small houses and buildings littering the hillside. Ben flies the  _ Falcon _ just over these settlements, to the homestead higher up the hill, consisting of one larger house and a few smaller garages. Rey peers over the control panel, looking out the window, and sees several small specks running out of the house.

“They see us,” she says, grinning.

Ben’s smile is just as wide. “Hopefully they’ve got the good sense to get out of the way of the  _ Falcon.” _

They do, the specks that upon closer inspection are clearly children, scampering away as Ben carefully lowers the  _ Falcon _ to the mossy ground. The ship settles nicely into the earth, and Rey, Jannah, and Ben are immediately on their feet, hurrying to the entry ramp. Jannah is the first to reach it, and she slams her hand on the button to lower the ramp.

They are immediately deafened by three voices calling their names.

_ “Ben! Rey! Jannah!” _

“Hi guys,” Ben calls.

Rey hurries down the ramp, catching the thirteen year old girl who’s launched herself into her arms. Rey laughs, pressing her face into the frizzy red hair that has filled her vision.

“Rey,” Arashell breathes. “Rey, you’re  _ here.” _

“I am,” Rey confirms. “How are you, Arashell?”

“Good,” Arashell says. She slides down Rey’s body (a short distance; Rey can hardly believe how tall she’s gotten) and races to Jannah, tackling the other woman in just as enthusiastic a hug. Rey is immediately swamped by Jannah’s greeter, a thirteen year old boy with black skin and short dark hair.

“Hello to you, too, Oniho,” she says, just as warmly.

“Hi, Rey,” Oniho says, a bit more composed than his friend.

Arashell and Oniho quickly go to Ben, the two of them leaping into the air, and Ben catches them both, one in each arm, the three of them laughing and smiling. The boy who’d run to Ben first walks to Rey and Jannah, smiling more shyly under a fringe of light brown hair.

“Hello, Temiri,” Rey says, and laughs as Temiri pulls her and Jannah into a hug. Temiri is fourteen years old, and this is apparent in how he’s nearly as tall as the two women.

“It’s good to see you,” Temiri says, smiling at her and Jannah.

“You too,” Jannah replies. “Kriff, you’re big.”

Temiri shrugs. “I’ve grown two inches this year.”

“Already?”

“Kes says it’s a growth spurt,” Temiri explains.

“The first of many, I’m sure,” a man calls.

Rey turns, spotting the form of Kes Dameron, striding out of the house with more composure than any of his teenage wards have shown. Kes always looks to Rey simply like an older version of Poe, with his tan skin, thick black hair heavily speckled with gray, and similar height. But Poe has his late mother’s eyes, with Kes’s being a lighter shade of brown.

“Ladies,” Kes says, winking, and that is  _ all _ Dameron charm.

Rey snorts, but allows Kes to deposit a kiss on her cheek, hugging him tightly. He greets Jannah similarly.

“Hi, Kes,” Rey says. “Thanks for letting us drop in so suddenly.”

Kes rolls his eyes.  _ “Please. _ If I had my way, you’d all live here already.”

_ If only, _ Rey thinks.

Ben wanders over, Arashell and Oniho closely following. He holds out his hand, which Kes ignores, yanking Ben in for a hug instead.

“Kriff,” Kes grunts. “Ben, did you get taller?”

Ben laughs. “No, I don’t think so. How are you, Kes?”

“Good, good,” Kes says. “Come on in, kids. Are you hungry? It’s Oniho’s turn to cook dinner tonight.”

“Wait,” Oniho says. “I didn’t know I was gonna be feeding  _ seven  _ people, I need--”

“I’ll help,” Rey interjects.

“Me, too,” Jannah adds.

“Me too!” Arashell and Temiri call in unison.

Kes smirks. “Full kitchen it is, then.”

* * *

Ben gladly accepts the mug of Sernpidal tea given to him by Arashell. Sernpidal tea is recognizable by the flower petals floating silently in the hot water; the petals Arashell has used to brew his cup are a dark purple.

“Thank you,” he says, and she nods, darting away to give Jannah a cup with dark blue petals.

At Ben’s side, Rey stands patiently, holding her hand out as Kes makes a big deal out of inspecting her ring.

“Very nice,” Kes decides, straightening. He eyes Ben. “Your mother must be pleased.”

“Absolutely,” Ben confirms, doing his best to ignore the memory of Leia’s indignation at him not telling her ahead of time. At least she’s forgiven him.

“I still remember Han and Leia’s wedding on Endor,” Kes muses. “There we all were, bloody, sweat-stained, exhausted, injured; and Han and Leia looked at this mess, and said, ‘You know what? Let’s get married.’”

Rey cackles, while Ben smiles.

“Sounds about right,” he says. He’s heard this story before, though not from Kes.

“Shara and I,” Kes says, naming his late wife, “were planning to catch the first flight out of the Moddell Sector headed galactic north so we could get home to Poe as soon as possible, but we decided to delay our plans by a day. No way were we missing Solo and Organa finally getting hitched.”

“Mon Mothma married them,” Ben says, in an aside to Rey. “The Chief of State of the Alliance. And as you know, Luke stood as Best Man. The ewoks practically organized the whole thing, nearly sending Threepio into hysterics over the dysfunction of the event.”

Rey laughs, clearly picturing it.

“Aw, but Leia was beautiful,” Kes says, warmly. “Braided her hair all fancy and everything, even though she was wearing a plain dress loaned to her by… kriff, I can’t even remember. Leia has always been beautiful, but she  _ glowed  _ that day. Your dad did too, Ben. Looked like he was gonna explode, he was so happy.”

Ben smiles, even as he is filled with the familiar ache that comes with reminiscing about Han, and his wide smile and sparkling eyes. Rey wraps her arm around him in comfort.

“It was a good day,” Kes finishes. “When are you two getting married? And more importantly: Am I invited?”

“Of course,” Ben says, at the same time as Rey says, “Absolutely.”

Kes nods, gratified.

“And we don’t know when yet,” Ben continues, glancing at Rey, who gives a confirming nod. “Or where.”

Kes gestures out the window. “What about here?”

“Yavin IV?”

“The backyard,” Kes says. “With Shara’s tree.”

Rey’s eyes widen. “Kes, that’s a great idea!”

“It is,” Ben agrees. 

It would be incredibly fitting, Ben thinks, for two Jedi to get married next to the Force-sensitive tree that grows in the backyard of the main house on the Dameron homestead. Shara had once gone on a mission with Luke to Vetine, where the two of them recovered two fragments of the Great Tree that had once grown in the courtyard of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. While Luke kept one of the fragments, he’d gifted the other to Shara, asking only that she plant it somewhere it would be cared for. Shara had chosen the backyard of her home on Yavin IV.

The Force-sensitive tree still grows in the yard, luminescent, outlined in blue.

It’s visible now, glowing in the light of the slow-setting sun.

“Well, it’s settled then,” Kes says. “You’ll tie the knot here. Hell, maybe you’ll give that hotheaded son of mine some ideas.”

“He’s second-in-command of an entire military,” Ben says. “He’s got a lot going on.”

“Yeah, and a very wonderful man he’d be damned lucky to marry.”

“Agreed,” Rey says, smirking.

“Soup’s on!”

The yell comes from Oniho, who’s perched at the stove, Jannah next to him, holding a bowl filled with heavy green leaves. Temiri is setting the table in the dining room, while Arashell is carefully pouring cups of water.

“Good service,” Ben comments, and Kes grins.

Dinner is delicious, Eopie stew with Xizor salad and fresh Lavender treebread, baked just that afternoon by Temiri. Ben smiles as Rey eagerly slurps up her stew, Oniho practically puffing out his chest at the clear compliment her obvious enthusiasm is.

Following dinner, Jannah volunteers to wash dishes with Arashell, while Kes and Oniho set up a game of Triga.

Ben, Rey, and Temiri slip outside, to the backyard.

Ben watches as Rey walks barefoot through the tall grass, moving purposefully to the glowing blue tree. The tree towers over them all, its thick trunk wider than Ben would be able to wrap his arms around, its branches stretching in all directions, heavy with light green leaves. Rey stops under the tree, craning her head up, smiling. He watches as she closes her eyes.

“I can feel it.”

Ben looks to his side. Temiri stands next to him, and is also watching Rey. He turns his gaze to Ben as he speaks again.

“The tree,” Temiri says. “I can  _ feel _ it. It… It hums.”

Ben nods. “It’s a Uneti tree, an incredibly rare species that possesses a connection with the Force. What you’re feeling is the Force itself, amplified, the tree acting as its conduit.”

“I thought so,” Temiri says.

“How long have you felt it?”

He shrugs. “Always, I guess. I just didn’t really figure out exactly where it was coming from until recently.”

“Have you been doing those breathing exercises I gave you?”

Temiri nods emphatically. “Every morning. Arashell and Oniho are doing them, too.”

Arashell and Oniho are not Force sensitive like Temiri is, but Ben thinks everyone could do with breathing exercises and meditation. He’s glad Temiri’s Force sensitivity is not ostracizing him from his friends.

Ben sits down in the grass, crossing his legs, and Temiri mirrors him.

“I wanted to show you something,” Ben says, and reaches into his jacket pocket, procuring one of the kyber crystals Jannah had mined from Lothal.

He holds it out, and Temiri takes it.

_ “Astral,” _ Temiri breathes. “This is for a lightsaber?”

“A focusing crystal, yes. It’s the energy source for the blade. This is a kyber crystal we just picked up from Lothal. It’ll change color once it’s been inserted into a hilt, and the Jedi has properly bonded with it.”

Temiri holds the crystal up, studying the way the light from the setting sun refracts in its shape.

“Will I get one?” he asks, voice soft.

Ben smiles. “Of course.”

“When?”

Temiri lowers the crystal, so he’s looking directly at Ben. Ben sighs, running a hand over his face. He glances over, and sees that Rey has stilled, and is watching them, a bittersweet expression on her face.

“When you’re of age,” Ben says.

They’ve had this discussion before.

“But I want to start  _ now,” _ Temiri pleads. “I want to be a Jedi, like you, Rey, Jannah, and Finn.”

“And you will be.”

“But why do I have to wait? You didn’t. You were much younger than me when you started your apprenticeship. And Rey, Jannah, and Finn got to start training as soon as they met you.”

“True,” Ben says. “They did, because they were all adults. But you’re fourteen years old, Temiri. I’m not comfortable bringing you to Ajan Kloss. We’re in the middle of a war.”

Temiri’s expression turns determined. “I want to go. I’m ready to fight.”

His enthusiasm, Ben thinks, is a good thing. He wishes it was not so devastating.

“If I was just a Master with a school,” Ben murmurs. “I would take you there in a heartbeat. But I’m not, Temiri. I’m on the High Command of the Resistance. I’ve got a twelve million credit bounty on my head. I am the son of the First Order’s most despised enemy. The Supreme Leader of the First Order wears my face.”

Temiri, Oniho, and Arashell had taken the revelation of Kylo Ren’s identity very well. They’d never really known exactly what the First Order was before moving in with Kes on Yavin IV.

It had been Kes who took the news much harder; but then again, Kes could still remember Bail as a little boy.

“The Jedi are fighting a war,” Ben continues. “We’re soldiers. We are killers, and officers, and strategists. We’re trying to remain true to the Jedi Code, but the fact remains that this is not an environment I’m comfortable bringing a child into, not even as an apprentice.”

Temiri nods; they’ve had this conversation before.

But his eyes are downcast, and Ben knows it hurts Temiri to hear the truth as much as it hurts Ben to deliver it.

“Should the war end before you’re of age,” Ben continues, “Then you are more than welcome to join us. Whether that be next week, or next year. The moment the peace treaty is signed; we’ll come here to get you. And you can start training.”

Temiri looks at him, and his eyes are brighter.

“Compromise,” Ben says.

“Compromise,” Temiri agrees, twisting the kyber crystal around his hand. “It just… Sometimes it feels like the war is  _ never _ gonna end.”

“I know,” Ben murmurs. “But it will. I’ll come for you then.”

Over Temiri’s head, Ben gets a glimpse of Rey, and catches the way her expression has suddenly shuttered, turned melancholic. She swallows, hard, and looks up to meet Ben’s eyes.

And suddenly; it all makes sense.

Rey’s odd reaction to his voice in the Temple. The way she thought he might not  _ really _ have been there, in the past, to speak to her.

The kyber crystal in Temiri’s hand.

The Force vision Rey experienced when she built her lightsaber.

_ “Ben,” she murmurs. “Ben, I really want to talk about what I saw during my vision quest. I need… I need guidance on it.” _

_ He studies her face. Her eyes are wide, desperate, beseeching. She is so clearly afraid. She has seen something that, even in this joyous moment, has shaken her. He can only think of one thing that would cause this reaction in Rey. _

_ Oh, Rey. _

_ “There is no death,” Ben whispers. “There is the Force.” _

He’d known, then, what she’d seen: His death.

They’ve somehow managed to avoid talking about it in the last five years. Ben still doesn’t know exactly what she saw. But going from her reaction here, what she saw indicated he doesn’t survive the war.

He looks at Rey now, and the ring on her finger, and the boy in front of him.

And he wonders:  _ How much time do I have left? _

* * *

Ben walks Temiri through the Center of Being stance, with Temiri borrowing Rey’s lightsaber to practice. Rey sits in the grass and watches as Ben demonstrates the pose, holding his own lightsaber horizontally, hilt just below his chin, casting his pale face in dark blue light.

“It’s a meditative stance,” Ben explains, Temiri watching him, mirroring his position exactly, the taller man and teenage boy facing each other. “If you fall into this style-- _ deeply, _ in, I should say--you can unconsciously defend against even the most aggressive attacks.”

“How?” Temiri asks, frowning.

“Reaching out,” Ben replies. “Letting the Force flow through you.”

Temiri bites his lip, closing his eyes. His skin glows in the reflected emerald light of Rey’s sword.

She fiddles with the grass under her hands, watching. It is a nice scene, she thinks, smiling. The Jedi Master teaching a future padawan a Jedi Form.

“Breathe,” Ben murmurs, eyes locked on the boy. “Just breathe.”

He takes deep, exaggerated breaths, getting Temiri to copy him.

“Good,” Ben whispers. “Now--”

Ben staggers, nearly clipping his chin on his lit blade.

Rey jumps to her feet, while Temiri’s eyes fly open, having sensed the sudden turmoil seeping through Ben’s presence in the Force.

_ “Oh,” _ Ben breathes. He drops his lightsaber to the ground, his right hand scrambling for his chest, clawing at his light shirt, like he’s trying to tear his own heart out. His head jerks up, brown eyes wide, pupils blown.

“Rey,” Ben gasps, “Rey--”

He takes one, difficult step to her.

And then his steps become more fluid, even, easy, and he’s walking towards her, straight-backed, tall.

He isn’t Ben.

He’s Bail.

She watches the realization of the switch wash over his face, like ripples in a pond.

He stops.

“Oh,” Bail says, frowning. “Huh.”

Rey stares at him, her hands clenched in fists at her sides.

Bail turns his head. He stares at the luminescent tree, bewilderment darkening his gaze. He opens his mouth, probably to ask--

“... Ben?”

He stills.

Slowly, Bail turns around, to look at the teenage boy who had called his brother’s name.

“Not quite,” Bail says, softly, and Temiri takes a step back, eyes wide, mouth dropped. It is as obvious to him as it is to Rey that this is not Ben, despite it being his body, his face, his voice. “But the next best thing, I suppose. Who are you? New apprentice?”

_ “No,” _ Rey spits, and Bail turns back to her, and Temiri’s eyes snap to her.

“No?” Bail repeats, and he speaks with the kind of dry sardonicism that Ben never speaks with, a sardonicism that is cruel and calculating. In this same tone, he looks to Temiri, and says, “Has my brother refused you?”

“N-No,” Temiri stutters, clearly overwhelmed at the impossibility happening in front of his eyes. 

Rey moves quickly, walking between man and boy, to stand just in front of Temiri, ready to shield him, to save him.

“You’re… You’re Kylo Ren,” Temiri whispers, catching on quickly.

Bail’s smile turns predatory. “I am. And you seek a teacher.”

His eyes drag up from Temiri’s face, to stare directly at Rey.

“I can show you the ways of the Force,” he whispers.

_ Kylo forces her to a ravine. He leans in close, and she leans as far back as she can, her spine bending, arching her over the edge. She cries out, watching as rocks below her tumble, disappearing into molten blackness. _

_ “You need a teacher,” Kylo yells, and startled, Rey looks back at him. His dark eyes are crazed, a bit wild, and so unlike Ben’s. “I can show you the ways of the Force.” _

Those words, repeated now.

Repeated to the boy Ben has refused; but not because he doesn’t want him. But because he does, but only as a Jedi, and not a soldier.

Those words Bail once said to Rey, in an effort to sway her, to convince her to turn her back on Ben, and join him, and Snoke.

_ “No,” _ Rey snarls. “No, you will not.”

“The Knights of Ren are always looking for new members,” Bail murmurs, raising one eyebrow at Temiri over Rey’s shoulder. “We are pushing the limits of what is possible, exploring new worlds, recovering ancient artifacts… Bridging the gap between reality and illusion…”

A shiver zips through Rey, involuntarily.

But Bail’s words remind her:

“What were the Knights of Ren doing on Lothal?” she asks. “Why were they in the Temple?”

For the first time, Bail looks surprised.

“What were the  _ Jedi _ doing in the Temple?” he asks. “What were you looking for?”

Rey rolls her eyes. “It’s  _ our _ Temple. You know. For Jedi. Not for…”

She trails off.

Ben had told her, Finn, and Jannah all that Evoleth Ren had shouted to him during their duel on Mantooine. Including Evoleth’s insinuation regarding the Knights of Ren and the Path of the Sith.

_ “What were you looking for?” _

She stares at Bail.

“What were Celosia and Fallow looking for in the Temple?” Rey asks. “What are  _ you _ looking for?”

* * *

Experiencing a moment of zero gravity when you are not expecting it, turns out, is one of the most unpleasant sensations a man can undergo.

If it weren’t for the gravity belt around his waist, creating an artificial field to tether him to the rock he’s walking on, Ben is sure he would’ve floated away, into the pitch blackness that surrounds him.

Aside from the glowrod in his hand, the only light comes from the floodlights on the ship behind him, a massive  _ Oubliette- _ class shuttle, hooked into the rock with steel cables that have drilled into the surface. It is the sight of this ship, more than this unexpected environment, that confirms for Ben that he and Bail have switched bodies again.

_ Why the hell, _ Ben thinks, looking around, breathing through the oxygen mask on his face,  _ are you walking on a kriffing asteroid? _

He’s in the middle of an asteroid belt, bits of stone and rock floating and crashing in the black space around him. There is no sign of a moon or sun or any planet nearby; only endless, abyssal space. Ben grounds himself, regulating his breathing before he can fully panic and give himself away.

Because walking in front of him, clambering over the rock, hopping over irregular dips, are the Knights of Ren.

All of them. Celosia, Fallow, and Evoleth; Vesper, Lior, and Hansa. 

And Kylo.

As soon as this revelation settles in, Ben slips into Force Concealment, hiding his signature.

He’s glad that for whatever reason Bail is not leading the group; Ben knows he’d have no chance at faking his way across an asteroid without knowing the reason why. 

Without much of a choice, he pulls himself together, and follows them over the asteroid.

* * *

Bail blinks at her.

He does not deny her question fast enough, does not offer a scathing retort, or a plausible excuse. His hesitation confirms it for her: the Knights of Ren are looking for something.

“An artifact?” Rey guesses. She’s read about how Jedi Temples often housed priceless and special relics, things like talismans and unique lightsabers, amulets and ancient texts. “But why would you look in the Temple of Lothal? That place was raided by the Empire.”

“Celosia and Fallow weren’t able to even enter it,” Bail admits.

Rey feels a flutter of pleasure, gratified to know the mysterious wolves did not come out to guide the Knights of Ren through the caverns. Or perhaps they scared the Knights away.

“But you’re not looking for a  _ Jedi _ artifact,” Rey murmurs. “You’re looking for a  _ Sith _ artifact.”

That is what Evoleth Ren had been hinting at, when he spoke to Ben on Mantooine.

The Knights of Ren are hunting for an artifact of the Dark Side.

* * *

The Knights of Ren reach an opening in the asteroid. It looks like pure nothingness, a hole that if one were to fall into, they’d fall forever until they disappeared completely.

Vesper, Lior, and Hansa look at Ben expectantly.

Naturally, they might be fine with leading the walk across the asteroid, but they want their Master to jump into the darkness first. Figures.

Ben sighs. 

He hops into the hole.

He falls gracefully, the artificial gravity in his belt pulling him down gently. The fall is short, only ten feet, the depth of the drop from the surface masked by the pitch blackness of the inside of the asteroid. Ben supposes it counts as a cave, though he’s not sure you could really call a hole in an asteroid surface a  _ cave. _

A moment later, the Knights drop down next to him.

“Which way, do you reckon?” Lior asks, pointing his glowrod side to side. The hole opens in two directions, right or left.

_ Maybe I’d know if I knew why we were here, _ Ben thinks. He wonders if Bail knew the way.

“Shouldn’t we feel it by now, if it was here?” Vesper asks, her pale green eyes confused over the oxygen mask on her face.

A cold that has nothing to do with the frigid space air they’re standing in runs through Ben.

_ What are you looking for, Bail? _

“Maybe it went into hibernation,” Hansa murmurs. “After it destroyed Oblis. Maybe it didn’t have any life to intake after that, so it just… went to sleep.”

_ A creature? _ Ben wonders.  _ We’re looking for a creature? _

In a cave, on an asteroid. This feels like a bad idea of truly epic proportions.

“Knew we should have tried harder to get that text on Pasaana,” Lior grumbles. “I  _ knew _ it--”

“We didn’t have a choice,” Hansa says, irritated. “Or did you  _ want _ to be eaten by a—”

Vesper interjects: “Which way, my Lord?”

It takes Ben a moment to remember that when the Knights say  _ my Lord, _ they’re speaking to him. He straightens his back, doing his best impression of his brother. It’s an excellent impression.

“To the right,” Ben says. A random guess.

The four of them march into the dark.

* * *

“Rey,” Bail drawls. “You know I can’t answer that.”

“You mean you  _ won’t,” _ Rey spits.

She hears the sound of the backdoor sliding open behind her, and she can’t help but look over her shoulder. Jannah is walking outside, Arashell at her side.

“Kes and Oniho have the game ready to go,” Arashell says. “Are you coming in now? I was--”

She emits a soft  _ oof, _ as Jannah has jerked her arm out, causing Arashell to run smack into it. Jannah’s dark eyes are wide, stricken with a mix of both horror and awe, and Rey realizes this is the first time Jannah has ever seen Kylo Ren.

He frowns at her.

“Who are you?” he asks. “A new Jedi?”

Rey deflates.

There is no way to deny it, to hide it. Bail can surely feel Jannah in the Force, just like she’s sensed him.

* * *

They have only been walking for about four minutes when it happens.

A wave of crackling  _ energy _ rips through the cave. It’s almost like a black mass, save for the purple electricity at its edges, and Ben and the Knights of Ren freeze as the energy wafts over them, in them, and through them.

_ “Oh,”  _ Hansa whispers. “That was…”

While the energy certainly looked dark, it hadn’t felt dark. Or cold, or hot. Or anything, really. The closest thing Ben can think of is--

“Hunger,” he murmurs.

The energy is  _ hungry. _ The creature it is emanating from has starved.

And then, from the darkness, from the direction the energy wave had come, whispers a low, rough voice:

_ “Come closer.” _

The hair on Ben’s arms stands up straight.

_ “I see what you want. I see what you seek. I can help you achieve your goals. I can see to it that each one of you becomes what you have dreamed of becoming.”  _

It takes Ben a moment to realize that he’s begun walking forward, the Knights copying his movements. The four of them inching closer to the dark voice, without knowing why, or making a conscious choice to do so.

And up ahead: a small purple light.

* * *

“Kylo Ren,” Jannah says smoothly, inclining her head, like this is just a simple diplomatic meeting. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“I bet,” Bail replies. “Unfortunately, I’ve heard nothing about you.”

“Well, as you said. I’m new.”

While Jannah and Bail speak, focused on the other, Rey jabs her fingers into Temiri’s shoulder. He frowns, looking at her, and she points with her eyes to the house behind them, and Arashell’s bewildered, alarmed form.

Unlike the others, Arashell has not yet realized what has happened; only that something is terribly wrong, that Jannah is talking to Ben like he is Kylo Ren.

Rey moves her arm behind her back, facing Temiri, palm out.

“My name is Jannah,” Jannah says, and Rey blinks, having missed the last ten seconds of conversation.

She feels the familiar weight of her lightsaber hilt settle into her open hand.

Temiri begins to inch away, moving towards Arashell.

“Jannah,” Bail repeats. “I see. The Jedi and the Knights of Ren are all evened up in numbers. For now.”

“For now,” Rey echoes.

Bail looks at her, and then frowns, noticing Temiri’s silent retreat.

“Hey,” he says, frowning. “Where--”

Swiftly, Rey moves, igniting her emerald lightsaber.  _ “Go!” _

She can hear Temiri racing to Arashell and Jannah, Temiri and Jannah shouting something, but Rey is already moving, running straight to Bail, lightsaber lit, raised in her hands--

And Bail reacts as she knew he would.

He calls Ben’s lightsaber to him from where it had fallen onto the earth, and ignites it, a striking beam of dark blue.

Rey’s lightsaber slams onto his.

* * *

The purple light is attached to a rod, about a meter long, and a plain brown. Wood, Ben would guess.

_ A staff? _ He wonders.

The light is flickering, spasming in the air, purple fire flicking up like sparks.

_ “At last,”  _ the voice croons, and it finally hits Ben that the voice is coming  _ from _ the staff.  _ “I have waited so long…” _

“You were hard to find,” Hansa says.

He sounds… reverent. Ben’s skin crawls.

_ “Evoleth, Knight of Ren, you wish to become a Sith battlelord,” _ the voice says, crooning.  _ “The ancient warriors who fought bravely in the New Sith Wars. Dark magic ran through their veins; they controlled their soldiers with the Force. A mighty mercenary, the battlelord. When I give you those powers, we shall be bonded; any wounds inflicted upon your body shall be transferred to one of the soldiers you control, and you shall know no pain, only victory.” _

The purple light slips away from Hansa’s awed face, turning to Lior.

_ “You wish to be invulnerable, Fallow Ren,” _ the voice murmurs.  _ “You wish to never lose your sword, like you once lost your leg.” _

“Yes,” Lior breathes.

Ben braces for it; the purple light has turned to him.

He takes deep, even breaths, hoping against hope that the light, or the staff, will see him as only his brother’s body, and not--

_ “A Light Sider.” _

Ben freezes.

The Knights turn, bewildered.

_ “You try to hide yourself from me,” _ the voice says, and it is sly and mocking, and Ben hates it, hates the memories it dredges up, of another Voice.  _ “But the Light seeps out of you. Undeniable. It has been thousands of years since I’ve seen a  _ Je’daii.  _ Your kind is weak. Ruled by a moronic Code, and a refusal to embrace all sides of the Force and all it can offer you.” _

“What are you?” Ben hisses.

The angry purple light spits.

_ “I am the end.” _

* * *

It’s been five years since Rey last fought Kylo Ren. Then, they battled on Ilum, while the snow fell and ice cracked under their feet, and Han Solo’s corpse lay in the bowels of Starkiller Base, and Finn sprawled on the ground with a burnt spine, and Ben took on two Knights of Ren. Then, Rey had only held a lightsaber for all of a minute before Kylo Ren attacked her with his. Then, Rey was just a scavenger, a nobody.

Now, Rey is a Jedi Knight.

Now, she is Rey of Nowhere.

She kicks out at Bail, who meets her blows with a calmness that is utterly foreign to her. She’d anticipated him to fight with the same rabid rage as he had then, when his side was spilling blood into the snow from a shot from a bowcaster, and his heart was on fire with the murder of Han, and his twin had stood against him for the first time. But that is not how Bail fights her now, on Yavin IV. He fights her with a cool calmness, nearly serenity.

“You’re very good,” he comments.

“Thanks,” Rey hisses. “I’ve had a good teacher.”

He actually laughs at that. “Yeah. That would be Ben, all right.”

Rey fights with Form V, Djem So, because Soresu would be far too passive against Kylo Ren, famed Jedi Killer, famed grandson of Darth Vader. She relies on the Force to enhance the strength of her blows, moving with brute power, wide strikes, fast hits.

Bail fighting with calmness is actually the perfect defense.

“You’ve changed,” Rey spits, as she heaves herself forward, jumping a little into the air to push Bail backward.

He twirls Ben’s lightsaber easily over his wrist, raising an eyebrow. “I’d hope so. Growth, and all that.”

She shakes her head, bewildered. “For what? Your personal  _ betterment?” _

They’re alone in the backyard now, Jannah having herded the teenagers inside. Rey can feel Jannah’s eyes on her, and knows her apprentice is waiting just inside, ready to spring out should she think Rey needs her help.

But this isn’t really a  _ fight. _

It’s just… sparring.

Bail studies the blue lightsaber in his hands, like he’s just now realized what he’s carrying.

“Ben has taken good care of his sword,” he comments. “This is a strong weapon.”

“Must be a nice change for you.”

“Ouch,” Bail says, deadpan, raising one eyebrow at her. “But you aren’t entirely wrong. This lightsaber feels… different. I wish I could take it with me.”

“Well, you can’t!” Rey yells, even though it’s inane. Bail’s words have reminded her of something she should have been thinking about this whole time.

_ Bail is here; where is Ben? _

“What were you doing this time?” she asks. “Having sex, again?”

She’d been expecting Bail to laugh, to give her some snide retort, or some cruel insinuation.

Instead, all the blood seems to drain out of his face.

“No,” he whispers.

* * *

Ben stumbles back.

Judging by the way the Knights of Ren have not moved to attack him; Ben thinks Bail has not been as forthcoming with his Knights about their recent switching experience as Ben has been with his.

He doesn’t know how long their confusion will hold, and he knows he should take advantage of it, and flee this place. But the staff, and its words, demand explanation.

This is a  _ weapon. _

“What do you mean,” Ben asks. “The end?”

_ “I am the Bringer of Death,” _ the voice says.  _ “I will lay waste to your galaxy. I will unhinge the Light until it is only ashes. I will reach into your heart and tear out everything you love. I will bury you in a coffin of your worst fears. Heed my words,  _ Je’daii,  _ and know them as prophecy: I will be the death of you.” _

Ben tears his eyes away from the purple light, looking at the Knights, his former friends, his classmates.

“This is madness,” he spits at them. “Whatever plan this is; you must see that it cannot be realized. Whatever this thing is, it’s far too dangerous. Power is not worth destroying the galaxy.”

His eyes catch on a pair of shocked green ones; Vesper’s.

“Ben?” she whispers.

“What the  _ hell?” _ Lior exclaims. “How?”

_ “The Force gives you an opportunity and you squabble among yourselves!” _ the voice snarls.  _ “Take me into your hands, and I will swallow his Force essence whole; his spirit will power me, and we shall make all your goals and wishes and dreams come true!” _

Ben doesn’t need to hear the threat twice.

He turns, and sprints down the cave.

He can hear the Knights yelling behind them, hears the familiar  _ hiss _ of lightsabers powering on.

And then he is knocked off his feet, as a wave of electric purple energy surges through the cave. Ben flies through the air, landing hard on his front, nearly dislodging the oxygen mask on his face, the only thing keeping him alive in this pit, in this asteroid. He twists, scrambling onto his back, sitting up on his elbows to look behind him.

Hansa holds the staff in his hands. His body is vibrating fiercely, his eyes rolled up in his head. Lior and Vesper stand a bit away from him, staring with shocked, fearful eyes at their fellow Knight.

Ben doesn’t need to know exactly what’s happening to know it isn’t good.

_ “Run!” _ he yells, and to his amazement, Vesper and Lior do, tearing down the cave after him.

Ben scrambles to his feet, takes a step, and then is frozen solid.

He wonders if this is what a ship feels like when it is locked in a tractor beam, when it cannot help but be pulled away, tethered by something invisible, slowly tugged somewhere it does not wish to go. Ben looks down, lifting his black gloved hands, and sees they are fuzzy, highlighted in white light.

His whole body is highlighted in light. He’s never seen anything quite like it; the closest thing would be how the Force spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi looked on Ahch-To, lit up in pale blue. 

_ “There,” _ the staff cries, its voice echoing in the darkness.  _ “I have you now. Your Light, your goodness… I could feast on it…” _

Ben is yanked around, spun on the spot. He sees Hansa approaching him, staff in his hands. Hansa’s eyes are clouded, ringed in purple, spasming light.

“H-Hansa,” Ben stutters.

Against the wall, Lior and Vesper are frozen, though they appear to be untouched; they are stilled by horror and fear.

It is Ben who is trapped, encased in a strange, black smoke that is slithering out of the staff like coils.

_ “Oh, this Light,” _ the staff whispers.  _ “Your Light is truly delicious, Ben Organa-Solo. Your Force essence alone could power the annihilation of this entire galaxy.” _

Ben struggles, doing his best to slip out of the black smoke.

As he watches, the odd light around his body slips away from him, to the staff, to the purple light emanating from the top of the staff.

“N-No,” Ben gasps. “No, n-no…”

_ “Oh, yes,” _ the staff says, the coils tightening, and Ben starts to lose his breath.  _ “I am your unmaker. I am your unholy end.” _

_ I can’t die here, _ Ben thinks, desperately.  _ Not like this. Not like this. _

The smoke pulls, and pulls, and the light from him is slipping away, and he can’t help it--

He screams.

* * *

The blue blade is extinguished, the hilt falling carelessly to the grass.

“Kriff, kriff,  _ kriff,” _ Bail swears, and Rey gawks. “Rey, did Ben figure out yet why this is happening? This switch between us?”

Rey extinguishes her lightsaber. She shakes her head, choosing honesty in the face of Bail’s distress. “No. That’s part of why we were on Lothal, but he couldn’t--”

_ “Fuck!” _

Bail looks close to tearing his hair out. His eyes are very wide, very horror-stricken, and it hits Rey what he’s experiencing: Fear. A rabid, primal fear.

Fear for his brother.

“Where is Ben?” Rey asks, her voice rising, as she is gripped by the same fear.

_ Not now, _ Rey thinks, desperately.  _ Not like this. This isn’t right. _

_ This isn’t right. _

_ Oh. _

“He’ll be okay,” she breathes, and her sudden quietness causes Bail to look at her, pausing in his frantic movements. “This isn’t how he dies.”

“What do you mean?” Bail asks, distracted.

“I’ve seen his death,” Rey whispers. “I am at his side for it. He doesn’t die alone.”

Bail stares at her.

“How does he die?” Bail asks, and the next thing she knows, he’s advancing on her, getting close to her face. He grabs her by the arms, and she gasps at the tightness of his grip. “How does Ben die, Rey?  _ When?  _ Tell me--”

He breaks off.

The next thing she knows, Bail is gone, and it is Ben, Ben on his knees before her, Ben who is  _ screaming. _

* * *

It takes Ben almost a full minute to realize he’s back on Yavin IV. Back in his own body, back on the soft green grass, back in the fresh air, back in the light of the setting sun, back in the yard of the Force sensitive tree. Back with Rey.

He slowly becomes aware of her, that she’s leaned over him, her hands running soothingly over his back and head. She’s whispering to him, soft, kind words, that he can barely hear over his ragged, anguished sobs.

“My love,” she whispers, crooning, as comforting as the tone of a mother. “Be with me. Deep breaths. Be with me, Ben.”

With shaking hands, he reaches for her. He wraps one arm around her bent knees, the other reaching up, finding her shoulders and pulling her down, until she’s crouched over him protectively and he’s curled on the grass under her.

“There you are,” Rey murmurs. “That’s it. Listen to the sound of my voice.”

Ben sobs, pressing his face into the dirt.

The pain still echoes in his head.

He is exhausted, drained, and deeply afraid.

“I’m here, my love,” Rey continues. “Please. Say something. Tell me you can hear me.”

“Rey,” Ben mumbles, quieter than he’s ever said her name before.

He feels her deflate against him, her chest pressing to his back.  _ “Ben.” _

He gathers himself together as best as he can, turning onto his side. Rey peers down at him, her skin pale, eyes alarmed and fearful. Something in her seems to easen when her eyes meet his, and she fits her hand to his cheek.

“Ben,” Rey whispers. “Ben, what happened?”

He swallows, pain and smoke and horror and despair.

“I saw…” he starts, and stops.

“You saw…”

“The end.” he looks at her, and she recoils from the look on his face. “Rey, I saw the end.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't mean to imply Ben was the person who left Rey on Jakku; that memory and the one where "he" told her the sun will keep her safe happened at different times. If this story was a movie, the different shots in that sequence would've cleared it up, LOL.
> 
> Corellian Spike was the variation of Sabacc in the game played when Han won the Falcon. "Primaver" is my made-up name for the village the Dameron/Bey Family lives. #RIPSharaBey. 
> 
> Ben DID make a promise to himself in THAT LOOKING-GLASS ACHE that he'd go back for the Canto Bight kids; so he did. I can see how Ben would rescue these kids, and have no idea where to take them, until Poe comments that his dad needs the help and the company. (I imagine Kes would be lonely; Shara's been gone for some thirty years, and Poe is fighting a war.) I think their little family would be a happy one. [And now you know how/why Ben and Rey had drawings made by children hanging on the walls of their room on Ajan Kloss.]
> 
> What exactly Rey "saw" in her Force vision five years earlier will be discussed next chapter.


	7. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What did you see, Rey?”

“So it was some kind of… staff?”

“That’s how he described it, yes,” Rey replies, leaning in close so the blue hologram of Finn can hear her. She and Jannah are practically on top of each other, the two of them squirreled away in the cockpit of the _Falcon._ Ben is asleep in the bunk room, a deep sleep aided by the shot of somaprin Kes had unearthed from his medicine cabinet in the house’s fresher.

Outside the _Falcon,_ night has fallen, the hills and countryside of Yavin IV quiet.

Finn frowns. Even in blue light, Rose looks stricken. Poe runs a hand over his face, deep in thought.

“And he was just… screaming?” he asks.

The secret of Ben and Bail’s unexplained and unexpected switching is officially out. For Rey, it stopped being a secret the second Ben fell to his knees in front of her, _screaming._ At that point, she threw all goals of caution out like an escape pod; things had officially taken a turn for the very worse.

When she commed Finn to find Poe and Rose with him (and the appearance of Rose shouldn’t have been a surprise, of course she would jump at the chance to see the children who’d helped them in Canto Bight) the three of them in the cockpit of their transport, Rey had spilled everything.

The switching. The Temple.

How Ben had returned to her, in the backyard, screaming like he was being murdered.

“He wasn’t very coherent,” Jannah says, looking at Rey, but Rey only nods, encouraging her to speak. “As soon as I heard him screaming, I ran outside… Everyone else did, too. And Ben was just… I’ve never heard a person make that noise.”

Rey swallows, hurriedly wiping tears off her face.

She never wishes to hear Ben sound like that, ever again.

“But he did say something about a staff,” Jannah continues. “And a purple light. And smoke. And someone named Hansa…”

“Evoleth Ren,” Rey clarifies.

“Right, him. He was there, too.”

“So, whatever this thing is, the Knights of Ren have it,” Poe summarizes.

Jannah nods. “Yes. And then Ben said…”

She trails off.

Rose, Poe, and Finn look at her expectantly, but Jannah hesitates.

Rey clears her throat.

“He told me he saw the end,” Rey murmurs.

“The end?” Rose repeats, frowning. “The end of what?”

“That’s all he said,” Rey says. “Just… ‘Rey, I saw the end.’ And then he passed out.”

 _Finally,_ Rey thinks, hating that she feels this way. But Ben being unconscious is infinitely preferable to Ben conscious and screaming like he’s being brutally tortured. She clenches her fists in her lap, willing her trembling to stop.

“Kes gave him a shot of some sedative,” Jannah says. 

“Probably leftover from when my mom was sick,” Poe comments.

“Yeah. So Ben’ll be out for a while. He might not even wake up before you guys get here.”

Poe rests his face in his hands. Even in a hologram, he looks exhausted.

“I have to call Leia,” he says, softly.

“And tell her what?” Rey asks, snapping out of her melancholy.

“That we need to figure out what weapon the First Order has just dug up,” Poe says.

“We don’t know anything, though,” Finn points out. “Just that…”

“It can cause a tremendous amount of pain?” Jannah says, politely.

Silence falls among the group.

Rey remembers what Ben looked like, five years earlier, when she found him on Ilum, in the middle of a snowstorm. He had just survived a transport crash he’d caused by pulling the ship down to the earth, doing his best to kill himself before Snoke could get his hands on him and tear the missing portion of the map to Luke Skywalker out of his head. And before that, he’d been tortured by his own brother, in the form of a neurotoxin that made him feel like his veins were on fire, coupled with the Memory Walk, a Dark Side Force ability that allowed the user to force their victim to relive their worst memories.

When Ben had walked to her then, his face was covered in the blood dripping out of his ears and nose, the crook of his left arm was a mottled black due to the toxin, and he was limping from an injury sustained in the crash. He’d looked terrible.

But he had smiled at her, and whispered her name.

What must have happened to him, to make him fall apart like this, now?

Rey can’t imagine.

“So, uh… does a cursed staff ring any bells?” Rose asks. “This has gotta be some kind of Force thing, right?”

“I think so,” Jannah says, casting an uncertain look at Rey. “But I’ve no idea what it could be.”

Not only does Rey wish that Ben was awake and fine because he’s _Ben,_ but because she really feels like they need a Jedi Master to consult with right about now. With Ben incapacitated, she knows that she is meant to be the acting Head of the New Jedi Order. She gathers herself together.

“Finn, do you have the texts with you?” she asks.

Finn shakes his head. “No. I was thinking this was just going to be a trip to see Kes and the kids.”

Rey bites her lip. Rose and Finn both being in a transport without the texts means there is no one left on base to go through them. Except maybe Leia… 

Privately, Rey is not optimistic there will be anything to be found in the texts about a staff. She’s sure that she, Finn, or Jannah would have read about it in one of the texts by now, and would remember enough to share with the others. 

“We’ll check ours,” Jannah says, jumping in, clearly eager for a task, something to do in the meantime. “The ones we have. I’m not sure if they can tell us anything--”

“They won’t.”

Rey and Jannah jump a foot in the air. Poe, Rose, and Finn have all leaned in close, to peer in the gap in between the pilot and co-pilot’s seats of the _Falcon_ that Rey and Jannah are seated in. The two women spin around.

Ben stands in the doorway. He looks haggard, far older than his thirty years, his short hair oddly lanky. He’s trembling even more violently than Rey, and he’s got the blanket she tucked in around him hanging over his shoulders. His eyes are focused down on the cool metal floor under his bare feet.

“There won’t be anything about what I saw in our texts,” he continues.

“Ben,” Rey whispers.

“How are you _awake?”_ Poe demands, staring, his shock obvious even over the distance, the comm connection. “We gave my mom those shots when she was in too much pain to be conscious--”

“I’m a light sleeper,” Ben murmurs. “And I could feel Rey and Jannah’s distress. It’d be enough to wake up anyone.”

“Sorry,” Jannah mumbles.

Ben shakes his head at her. “Don’t be. There’s no time to waste.”

He slides down into the seat behind Rey. There are dried tear tracks on his waxen skin. 

“The thing I saw,” Ben whispers, “was _evil._ Pure, unfiltered evil. It was a staff, about a meter long, with a purple light on the end, purple fire. I couldn’t tell what was powering it, if it was a crystal, or a magic fire, or something else. But it had… a presence. It was sentient. It could speak and think for itself. And it could… it knew who we were. It knew I was not my brother, and it knew my name. It knew I’m a Jedi. It had enough of a mind to know how to manipulate; once it had outed me, it goaded Hansa, by telling him that it could destroy me if Hansa picked it up. And so he did.”

“Of all the Knights there,” Rey says, “Evoleth Ren is the most eager to kill you.”

Ben nods. “I’m sure it could sense that in Hansa. Or read his mind. I don’t know.”

“What does it _want?”_ Rose asks.

“Annihilation,” Ben says. “It wants to destroy the galaxy. It told me as much. It wants power. And the fact that this is an _object,_ an _it…_ Makes it all the more fearsome. I’ve never heard of any object that can think and speak for itself. Whatever it is; it’s evil, incredibly old, and should never have been pulled out of that asteroid.”

“Any idea where this asteroid was?” Poe asks. He’s moving around, reaching for a datapad behind him, taking notes. Jannah mirrors him, grabbing a spare notebook.

“Nothing jumped out at me,” Ben says, thoughtfully. “I didn’t see any planets or moons. Just an asteroid belt.”

“Who else was there?”

“Only the Knights of Ren.”

Poe raises an eyebrow. “No First Order ships? Stormtroopers?”

“No one. Just the Knights of Ren.”

Finn scratches his chin. “So… the First Order may not be involved in this. It could just be something the Knights of Ren were trying to get.”

“If they weren’t involved before, they will be now,” Ben says, darkly. “There’s no hiding this staff. As soon as they take it off the asteroid, and back to their base, the First Order will know of it. It’s been awakened, and we’ll all have to deal with it.”

Ben is not prone to exaggeration, which makes his calm certainty all the worse. Rey grips the arms of her chair, staring at him, this shadow of the man she loves.

“What did you mean,” Rey says, “When you said you saw the end?”

Ben meets her gaze. His brown eyes look black in the dark light.

“This staff will unhinge the universe,” Ben says. “It’ll smother all the Light in the galaxy until there is nothing left. It said…”

He trails off.

“Ben?” Rey prompts.

“It told me,” Ben whispers, “That it’ll be the death of me.”

Fear, cold, inescapable _fear,_ runs through Rey.

“And I think I believe it,” Ben says, still so quiet.

“How did it hurt you?” Finn asks, alarmed. “Was it trying to kill you?”

“Yes,” Ben says. “It was. It… This black smoke came out of it, and wrapped around me. I couldn’t move. I was lit up in light, kind of like the way a Force spirit will appear shrouded in blue light. I was like that. And the smoke was… sucking the light out of me. The staff told me it was taking my Force essence, and with that, it would have enough power to annihilate the galaxy.”

“Force essence, what’s that?” Poe asks.

Ben shakes his head. “I think it’s just… _me._ It certainly felt like… like it was tearing me apart, _slowly,_ inch by inch… It was trying to feed off me, all that I am. To gain enough power to…”

He doesn’t need to finish his sentence.

Rey looks at Ben, then Jannah, Finn, Rose, and Poe.

Bewilderment, horror, and fear darkens every face.

“What do we do?” Jannah whispers. “Master, what do we do?”

Her use of the title seems to jar something in Ben. He looks up to meet the apprentice’s worried gaze.

“Pasaana,” Ben says, and Rey startles, surprised. “We must go to Pasaana.”

“Wait, what?” Poe asks, similarly surprised. “That desert world in the Expansion Region?”

“Yes,” Ben says, leaning forward to see the control panel. “Jannah, how far are we?”

Jannah fires the computer up, typing in the planet’s name, looking at the possible routes.

“A little less than half a galaxy away, galactic south,” she says.

“We’re not any closer,” Rose says, her form slightly hidden by the way she’s bent over her own nav computer. “We’re on the Celanon Spur, almost to Vinsoth.”

“Get on the Salin Corridor and head galactic south,” Ben snaps. “Then the Hydian Way, then the Vaakthkree Trade Corridor, then the Randon Run, the Ootmian Pabol until you get to Gyndine. Then Finn can guide you to Pasaana with Instinctive Astrogation.”

Everyone looks at Ben.

Slowly, he raises his eyes.

“Er…” Rose frowns. “Why are we going to Pasaana?”

“Because the Knights of Ren left something there that might be able to tell us more about the staff,” Ben replies, and the group softens, filled with understanding. “But they didn’t leave it willingly. They left it there because they were attacked by something.”

Rey stares. Jannah’s eyes, somehow, widen further.

Ben looks at Finn, Rose, and Poe, and then at Jannah and Rey.

“Please,” he says, quietly. “Prepare yourselves. Whatever we are about to face; it is not of the Light. It might not even be something of the Sith. What we’re dealing with… is the Dark Side, and all of the fear, horror, and pain it can throw at us.”

Rey has no idea how to prepare. 

“Rose, Finn, and Poe,” Ben says, turning to them. “I’m sorry you won’t be able to come to Yavin IV right now, but you’re further away from Pasaana than us, so you need to head in that direction now.” Ben pauses, and looks at Poe. “Poe, I know that you’re my superior officer. I know I have no grounds to give you orders like this. I ask you, not as a Jedi Master, but as your friend: Please trust me, and know that we have to hurry.”

Poe meets his gaze.

After a moment, he nods.

“Of course,” he murmurs. “But Ben… I gotta tell Leia. You know that.”

“I’ll do it.”

Rey stares at Ben, surprised. This, she thinks, is the true mark of how much the staff’s reveal has shaken Ben, that he is choosing to tell his mother of the switchings with his Dark Sider brother.

“She should hear it from me,” Ben says, quietly, and no one argues with him. 

He turns to Jannah.

“Jannah,” he says. “It’s time to build your lightsaber. I wish I could give you endless time, but I can’t. I think if you go out to the Force sensitive tree in the yard that it might expedite this process. Rey will prepare you.”

Rey nods, projecting all her comfort and certainty to her apprentice. Jannah still looks quite shaken, but the determination in her eyes is undeniable. She has waited for this opportunity for so long; the situation is not ideal, but she will rise to it.

“Let’s go in and say goodbye to Kes and the kids first,” Ben says. “Because as soon as Jannah’s lightsaber is built, we’ll have to leave.”

* * *

Even though it’s nearing midnight, everyone in the Dameron house is awake. Ben half-expects there to be noses pressed to the glass as he, Rey, and Jannah reach the front door.

The game of Triga was abandoned before it was ever played, the game board and playing pieces still lying on the table next to the fireplace. Dishes are still drying in the dishrack in the kitchen, the container with flower petals for Sernpidal tea next to the stove. And assembled in the living room, waiting patiently, are Kes, Temiri, Arashell, and Oniho.

The four of them look at Ben. While Kes has managed to school his face into a casual interest, the teenagers look very worried.

Ben sighs.

“I’m okay,” he says. “Come here.”

They do, the three kids, wrapping their arms around him. Arashell squishes herself into his chest, while Oniho and Temiri encircle her and Ben. He is taller than all of them, and seeing and feeling their worry and fear makes him feel positively _ancient_ in comparison to them as well.

“I’m sorry you all had to see that,” he tells them.

“Forget that,” Oniho interrupts. “What _happened?”_

“I got an unexpected, first hand experience with evil,” Ben says. “Please don’t ask me to elaborate on that.”

Partially, he doesn’t want to elaborate because he doesn’t know _how_ to, how to explain the staff and the terror and the raw agony he could never imagine feeling. But more than that, he doesn’t want to say more because he does not wish to add to their anxiety.

They are thirteen and fourteen year olds; on almost every system, they are still children.

Part of Ben will always think of them as children, those kids who looked at him with such hope and promise in Canto Bight, the moon overhead, the body of their abuser at his feet.

Ever since he first saw them, he has wished to protect them. 

That was why he went back for them in Canto Bight, three and a half weeks after he left. He’d walked into the stable to find Temiri sweeping up straw and droppings, Arashell polishing tack, and Oniho refilling water buckets. The fathiers had seen him first, and nickered greetings at him. And then the children spotted him, and their fierce joy had nearly knocked him off his feet.

At the time, he didn’t know where he could take them. Ajan Kloss was not on the radar yet, and the Resistance was operating remotely, from a handful of ships. And then Poe had the idea of sending the kids to stay with his father on Yavin IV, commenting that Kes would need the help for the harvest season.

Though Ben knew Kes to be a good and kind man, the children didn’t, and were understandably nervous about going to live with and work for an unknown man in the Outer Rim. So Ben, Rey, and Finn had gone to Yavin IV for a month; while the children settled in with Kes, and Finn started his Jedi apprenticeship.

At the end of the month, Finn was openly experiencing the Force, and the children were experiencing true parental affection for the first time in their short lives.

They love Kes, and he loves them. 

Over the teenagers’ heads now, Ben meets Kes’s eyes, and sees how tight they are.

“Make me a cup of tea?” Ben asks, and Arashell hurriedly nods. “Jannah and Rey are going to head out back, and Rey is going to prepare Jannah for building her lightsaber with some meditation. Any snacks for Jannah to eat would be very helpful for her.”

As anticipated, all three teenagers scurry off, eager to help. Rey gives Ben an acknowledging nod, and she and Jannah follow the kids into the kitchen.

Ben sticks his hands into his pockets, and approaches Kes.

“How are you doing on credits?” Ben asks. “I haven’t checked lately--”

“Ben, you don’t have to pay me to take care of the kids,” Kes says, waving an airy hand. “They take care of _me._ I’m very grateful to have them here.”

“Good.”

“So you wanna tell me what really happened out in my yard?”

“I don’t know _how,”_ Ben admits. “I’m not sure what I saw. But it won’t… It won’t affect you or the kids. Or Yavin IV. We’ll stop it.”

Kes studies his face. 

Ben wonders what he sees.

After a moment, the older man nods. “I believe you, Ben.”

 _I wish I did,_ Ben thinks.

Outloud, he asks, “Can I use your comm system? I have to call my mother, and she’s going to need to see my face clearly. The _Falcon’s_ comm system doesn’t work that well.”

“Sure, sure,” Kes agrees, gesturing down the hall. Ben goes.

Kes’s home office is small and organized, consisting only of a desk and a remarkably modern comm system. Ben settles down at the desk, and glances out the window. The backlights of the house have been turned on, and he can make out the forms of Rey and Jannah, sitting in the grass under the Force sensitive tree, with Temiri and Oniho standing by them.

A soft knock on the door makes Ben turn around.

Arashell stands there, a mug of tea in her hands.

“Oh, thank you,” Ben says, as Arashell crosses the room to give him the tea. She nods, and hesitates.

“That was your brother here,” she says, and it is not a question.

Ben nods. “Yes. As you know, he’s Kylo Ren.”

“But that isn’t his real name?”

“Not to me, no,” Ben murmurs. “For me, his name is Bail. He will… In a lot of ways, for me, he will always be Bail.”

“Bail,” Arashell repeats. “Okay. Ben, when… Just before you came back, Bail was… freaking out. Like, yelling, but not in an angry way. I think he was worried. For you.”

Ben frowns. Rey hadn’t mentioned this, but to be fair, she hadn’t really had an opportunity to do so.

_“I am my brother’s keeper.”_

And the last time Ben saw his brother: Over a fire in Rey’s hut on Ahch-To, his face pale, circles under his dark eyes, his head tilted to Ben, the way his mouth formed the shape of Ben’s name, how his arm lifted, his hand reached out--

“Thank you for telling me,” Ben says.

She leaves, Ben watching her go, before shaking himself out of his stupor and turning back to the comm system. He pulls the headset over his head, and dials Leia’s code.

N-E-B-3-2-4

He waits. She’ll think Kes Dameron is calling her, with his codename as Bey Station, rather than Corellian Strike, which is Ben’s codename. Ben looks at the chronometer on the wall, does some quick calculations, and notes it’s early morning on Ajan Kloss, she probably--

“Kes?”

Leia’s face flickers in front of Ben. He watches as her eyes widen, a soft, pleased smile lighting up her face.

“Ben,” Leia says, warmly, and Ben takes deep, calming breaths. “What are you doing there? How are--”

“Commander-in-Chief Organa.”

His serious tone, his lack of familiarity; it instantly puts her on her guard. He can practically see her shake off her persona as _Mother,_ returning to one she wears just as much if not more: _Commander. General. Leader. Rebel._

“I have to tell you something, and I need you to process it and hear it as Commander-in-Chief Leia Organa,” Ben says. “And understand that it’s information being delivered to you by a Jedi Master who happens to share your surname. Okay?”

Leia studies him. This is the first time he’s ever explicitly asked her to work with him as his superior officer; usually, she is the one who has to give the reminder. Ben instigating it here, now, is probably unexpected. And concerning.

“Is this related to how you knew about the meeting on Teth?” she asks.

She had tried to get more out of him about that one; had known right from the moment he said it that there was more going on than simple intuition.

Ben sighs.

“Yes.” He takes a deep breath. “I’ve been switching bodies with Kylo Ren. It’s happened at least three times, on separate occasions. I’ll blink and find myself in his body, wherever he is, doing whatever he’s doing. And vice versa. He’s spoken to Rey, Jannah, and Temiri. And I’ve spoken with the Knights of Ren. Outside of these individuals, the only others who know are Kes, Arashell, and Oniho here on Yavin IV, and Finn, Poe, and Rose.”

Leia stares.

Ben continues. He describes the incidents (skirting around exactly what Bail had been up to during the second switch, because even if he’s asking her to consider him now as a Jedi and not her son, he’s not sure he can afford that same courtesy when talking about his brother’s sex life) from his perspective, and then as best as he can from Bail’s, based off Rey’s descriptions. He tells Leia about the revelation of the meeting on Teth, and initially thinking it to be a dream, until Elya confirmed it in the High Command meeting.

And then he tells her about the staff, and what it said, and what it did to him.

Leia shows remarkable restraint, giving nothing away with her dark eyes. She listens carefully, thoughtfully, embodying the politician he knew her to be when he was a child, and she’d leave to work in the Defense Department building in Hanna City.

He finishes, by informing her that they are going to Pasaana next, to find what the Knights of Ren were forced to leave behind.

Leia is quiet.

“So, to clarify,” she says. “You don’t know what is causing the switch?”

“No, Commander-in-Chief.”

“Or what this… staff is?”

“No,” Ben murmurs, wishing he had any other answer. “But I’m optimistic there will be some clarity on Pasaana.”

“Right.” Leia nods. “Well. What do you recommend the Resistance do, going forward?”

“Gather any intel on major changes within the First Order,” Ben says at once. “Energy surges in unexpected places. Sudden promotions of certain officers. I don’t think it will be difficult to track the staff’s movements in the galaxy. Intel on where the Knights of Ren are and what they’re doing will also be helpful.”

Ben pauses.

“Once the Jedi know what this staff is, what it does, and how it can be destroyed,” he says, “We will make it a priority to do so, right away.”

“I understand,” Leia replies. “I appreciate the service of the Jedi. And I agree that this weapon sounds like something… Well, something more to do with the Force and its mysteries than the more common galactic war the Resistance is fighting. I will call for an immediate, emergency meeting with High Command for this new threat to be shared, as well as our steps going ahead.”

“Thank you.”

Leia studies him. “Now; may I speak to my son, as his mother?”

Ben’s breath catches.

He isn’t sure who needs this next conversation more; him, or Leia.

“You may,” he murmurs, and Leia’s face seems to collapse, concern and worry and fear making her eyes--his eyes--massive in her round face.

“Sweetheart,” Leia whispers. “Oh, I am so sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Ben says.

Leia eyes him. “Well. You _would_ say that. But you should also know that I am… in some ways, at least partially responsible for the actions of Kylo Ren.”

“If Bail didn’t exist, neither would I. I’m not blaming you or punishing you for that.”

He can’t quite bring himself to say what he should, which is: _I’d rather have no Bail at all rather than this evil one._

Because this evil Bail, Kylo Ren; he’s still Bail. And Ben would not be who he is if he did not wish for Bail to come home, to return, to stand with him again, even after everything. After the death of Han. The torture of Ben. The destruction of Hosnian Prime. The near annihilation of the Resistance. The countless acts of violence and death that have consumed the galaxy in the last five years.

Part of Ben will forever be reaching for Bail.

_Come back._

“Well, I can definitely be sorry you had to experience… that staff,” Leia says, stumbling a little over the word. “You’ve never heard of it?”

“No. And if Luke did, he didn’t make a record of it. So I don’t really think he did.”

“I understand,” Leia says. “Pasaana. Okay. I don’t know much about it.”

“Neither do I,” Ben admits.

Leia frowns. “So you don’t know what to expect there, I take it? What attacked those Knights?”

Ben sighs. “No. I think it’s safe to say it was something Dark. Possibly something of the Sith. We’ll do research on our flight there.”

“Are you afraid?”

Ben meets her eyes.

Here she is, Leia Organa. Mother, wife, daughter, sister. Soldier, rebel, leader, warrior. General, senator, minister, commander. All of those things. At once.

“Mom,” Ben starts, and stops.

He swallows, grips the edge of the desk, closes his eyes.

Outside, he can feel the Force sensitive tree, and Jannah’s echoing light. In the house, he can feel the heartbeats and breaths of the children, of Kes. And ever closer, the starlight that is Rey, so comforting, so guiding.

“I am,” he tells his mother, because he feels very small in spite of it all.

And then, he tells her the truth, as best as he can: “Mom. I think I’m going to die.”

“Ben, sweetheart, you don’t know--”

“The staff told me it would be the death of me,” Ben interrupts. “And it very nearly killed me in that asteroid. But more than that… I never told you this, but five years ago, during her vision quest while she built her lightsaber, Rey saw my death.”

Leia stares.

“She wanted to tell me about it then,” Ben admits. “Instead, I shut her down, told her we’d think about it later, that it was more important she focus on her lightsaber, on her Knighting Ceremony. But I… I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to hear it. And now, I…”

He sighs.

“I owe her an apology,” Ben says. “She shouldn’t have had to carry this for five years. Especially now that…”

_That it might be close to passing._

“I don’t survive this war,” Ben tells his mother. “And I, I just… I hope you do. And I hope Rey does, too. You’ll…”

_You’ll need each other after I die._

“Anyway,” Ben says, shaking his head.

Leia stares, eyes wide. Horrified. Guilt settles deeply into Ben.

“I shouldn’t have told you that,” he says, softly. “Force visions are a Jedi thing, you shouldn’t have to worry about it--”

“I’m glad you told me,” Leia interrupts. “I should know.”

“This can’t change anything,” Ben continues, quickly. “This can’t affect any decisions you make. It won’t affect any of mine. What happens will happen. Okay?”

Leia looks at him.

She looks sad, so sad.

“Mo--” Ben stops, restarts. “Commander-in-Chief Organa. Do you understand?”

He sounds mean, he knows. Cruel. Asking her to set aside her title of mother, return to Commander, following the revelation of her son’s impending demise.

“I understand,” Leia breathes.

Ben thinks of what Pooja Naberrie said to Leia five years earlier.

_“You have always worn grief so well, Cousin,” Pooja comments, stricken, to Leia. “My hope that you will carry these new losses with as much grace.”_

He wonders how she will carry the loss of him.

“Good,” Ben says now. He nods. “There is no pain, there is grace. There is no death, there is the Force. Remember that. Okay?”

“I will.”

“Thanks. Okay. I need to go.”

“I love you, Ben.”

His chest aches. He wishes to crawl into the screen, to slip across space, to wrap around Leia, to press his face into her stomach, to cling to her.

“I love you, too,” he murmurs.

“May the Force be with you,” Leia says, and Ben can’t help but laugh.

“Hey, that’s my line.”

“Mine, too,” she retorts.

He supposes that’s fair. Though Leia never trained as a Jedi, Luke did teach her about the Force, what it means, how to interact with it. 

“May the Force be with you,” he tells her. “I’ll check back in after Pasaana.”

“Good. Good night, Ben.”

She signs off. 

Ben leans back in his chair, and looks out the window, at the glowing blue tree.

* * *

Rey waits until Jannah is settled, seated comfortably, surrounded on all sides by the metal components that will make up her built lightsaber, before she slips back inside the house.

The kids are all awake, still, and noticeably more calm than they’d been when Rey, Jannah, and Ben had returned to the house from the _Millennium Falcon._ Though the board game remains abandoned (Kes is scooping up the pieces) the three teenagers are gathered in front of the fireplace, watching a recorded podrace.

“Join us, Rey?” Oniho asks.

Rey smiles.

“I will,” she says. “I just need to nip out to the _Falcon_ for a moment. I’ll be back.”

The kids nod, appeased.

Rey glances down the hallway she knows leads to Kes’s office, but she can’t hear anything. She wonders how it’s going, Ben telling Leia everything.

Rather than peek into the office to find out for herself, she goes out the front door.

The night air is pleasant, that temperature that hovers in the middle of cool and warm. The air is heavy, thick with the promise of an incoming thunderstorm, and Rey peers up at the black, starlit sky, hoping the rain will hold off until Jannah is indoors again. She hurries across the gravelled path, darting up the ramp of the _Falcon,_ moving straight to the cockpit.

She closes the cockpit door behind her, slips into the pilot’s seat, and pulls the headset over her head, flattening her braid as she does so. She doesn’t have time to care; instead, she hails Finn.

He answers almost immediately.

“Did you feel my distress in the Force?” Rey asks, surprised.

“Huh? No. I was about to call you, though,” Finn replies. 

“Oh.” Great minds think alike. “Where are Rose and Poe?”

“Cooking dinner.” Finn studies her. “I told them I wanted to call my chaos twin in private. How are you doing, Rey?”

Rey bites her lip.

Alone in the _Falcon,_ without Jannah or Ben, only Finn, her brother in everything but blood; she breaks.

She hiccups a sob.

“Oh, Rey,” Finn breathes.

Rey claps her hands over her mouth, as Finn’s blurry hologram form leans in closer, conveying sympathy with that small movement.

“It was awful, Finn,” Rey whispers. “I’ve never heard anyone make that noise. And the fact it was _Ben…_ He’s always been so strong, so sure. Even when he was afraid; he’d hold together. To see him like that, screaming, in such agony, I…”

She can’t describe it.

“I’m so sorry,” Finn murmurs.

“That’s not even the worst thing,” Rey admits. “Not really.”

“What do you mean?”

She wipes her eyes, pulling herself together.

“When I built my lightsaber,” Rey says, “I saw Ben die.”

She’s kept this secret inside her for five years. No longer.

Finn’s eyes widen. He leans in even closer, until only his face is visible in the hologram. “What did you see, Rey?”

Rey takes a deep breath.

“The sky was red,” she whispers. “I don’t know if it… was due to a sunrise, a sunset, or something else. But it was so quiet. So still. I could hear birds. I was lying on my side, on the ground, on stone. Like a… Like I was in a quarry. I think it was a quarry.”

She’s reflected on the vision, over and over again, in the last five years. Picking it apart. Searching for something identifiable.

“And I turned my head,” Rey continues. “And I saw Ben. In the middle of the quarry, nothing or anyone else around him. He was lying on his back, head tilted up to the red sky. His lightsaber was at his side, fallen out of his hand. But his body wasn’t twisted, or anything. One hand was stretched out on the rock, and the other was on his abdomen. He looked like he was just lying on his back, looking up at the sky. Except…”

Rey swallows her sob.

“He was pale,” she whispers. “There was blood on his face, a trickle coming out of his nose. And his eyes… They were wide open, and he was staring at nothing.” She looks at Finn. “He was dead.”

Finn swallows. “Oh, Rey…”

“I don’t know where it happens,” Rey says, forcefully now. “I don’t even know _how_ it happens. He isn’t bleeding much, and there is no obvious mortal wound. But I know… I know it’s coming soon. I’ve known it’s soon, ever since last month.”

“Why?”

“Because Ben cut his hair,” Rey whispers. “Shorter than I’ve ever seen it.”

* * *

_“Don’t laugh.”_

_“Why would I laugh?” Rey asks, not even looking up from her work. She’s rubbing oil in the activation switch of her lightsaber; it’s developed a hint of a creak that’s going to get really annoying to listen to, really quickly._

_“Rose got a little carried away.”_

_Rey sits straight up, spinning around from her position on the bed._

_Ben stands in the doorway of their room, looking a little sheepish. He runs a hand over his head, over his newly shorn black hair._

_“I told her I wanted it short, and she took me at my word,” he says, a little ruefully. “So it’s a bit shorter than I expected, than I think it’s ever been. What… What do you think?”_

_She thinks he looks cute._

_He’s twenty-nine, almost thirty, and she thinks he looks adorable._

_But her affection is being overwhelmed by the sheer horror and shock that rolls through her._

_She’s seen Ben with his hair this short before. In her Force vision._

_Some of her despair must cross her expression, because Ben’s face flushes, and he looks down._

_“No!” Rey says, hurriedly. “No, that’s not it… I’ll just… I’ll miss your longer hair.”_

_She gets to her feet, standing on the bed in her socks, beckoning Ben to her. He walks to her, looking doubtful, but moves obediently as she reaches for him. She runs her hands through his short hair, her nails scratching his scalp._

_“I can see your ears,” she whispers, conspiratorially._

_“Like you’ve always wanted to,” Ben mutters, still blushing._

_“I have,” Rey confirms, grinning now. She leans forward, bending a little, and presses a kiss to Ben’s forehead. “You look very cute, Ben. But you didn’t tell me you wanted to get a haircut.”_

_“It was… kind of a last minute decision.”_

_“Oh?”_

_“Apparently…” Ben sighs. “Bail’s hair brushes his shoulders. I thought… I thought the drastic differences in length… I thought it might make us more obviously different. To people.”_

_Rey nods. “Makes sense.”_

_“Right. Rose just got a little enthusiastic, that’s all.”_

_“Well, your mum definitely won’t be able to braid your hair now,” Rey says, and Ben laughs._

_She puts her hands on his face, makes him look at her._

_“You’re always very handsome, Ben,” she tells him. “And now; you’re just plain cute.”_

_He smiles, dimples forming in his skin, and Rey leans forward, and kisses him._

_All the while, her heart thuds in her chest, beating with fear and grief._

* * *

“It’s the same length his hair was in my vision,” Rey tells Finn.

“Kriff,” Finn breathes.

“Ben swears he won’t ever let it get this short again,” Rey says. “So I think… I think it’s now, Finn. Soon. Ben is…”

She can’t make herself say it.

_Ben is going to die._

“Okay,” Finn says. “Okay. What has Ben said about this vision?”

“Nothing. He doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t--” Finn breaks off, gawking at her. “How the hell have you never talked about it?”

“He didn’t want me to focus on it,” Rey mutters. “When I first had it. And then… I don’t know. There was so much going on, and I… _I_ didn’t want to think about it.”

Deep shame wells in her.

She should know that just because she ignores something doesn’t mean it’ll go away. A Jedi should know better.

But this is Ben; this is Ben’s _death._

This is her greatest fear. 

“Okay,” Finn says, again. “Okay. So, first, we tell him--”

“No.”

Finn blinks. “No?”

“No. We don’t tell him.”

Finn emits a noise that is halfway between a shriek and a guffaw. “You’re kidding! Rey, c’mon--”

“No,” Rey interrupts. “Look. If I’ve learned anything about Force visions, it’s that oftentimes, it’s _choice_ that makes them either come true or not come true. It isn’t destiny, or fate, or anything like that. We choose to make them happen. And… I’m worried if I tell Ben about my vision, that when it comes to pass, he’ll… He’ll just let it happen. Because he’ll think it’s the only way.”

“What if it is?”

“It _won’t be,”_ Rey insists. “It won’t be. I won’t let it be the only choice.”

“Rey,” Finn murmurs. “Rey, you can’t… you can’t sacrifice yourself for Ben--”

“I won’t,” Rey says. “I won’t, Finn. I’ll just… Between the two of us, we know what it’s gonna look like. And we can change things. We can make it not happen.” She levels her gaze at Finn. “We can’t lose Ben, Finn. The Jedi… The Jedi Order needs its Master.”

_And I need my partner. I need my betrothed. I need Ben._

“Promise me, Finn,” Rey says. “Don’t tell him.”

Finn’s expression is aghast; he is torn. Torn between his loyalty to Rey, his chaos twin, his first friend; and Ben, his Master, his second friend.

“Please,” Rey implores.

Finn’s face crunches up.

 _“Fine,”_ he declares. “Fine, I promise. But he’s gonna find out at some point, I just know it. And he’s gonna be pissed.”

“Maybe,” Rey says. “But that’s a future me problem.”

Finn sighs.

“Let’s just focus on Pasaana,” Rey says. “Hopefully there will be something there that’ll explain this staff to us.”

“Right.”

“Okay. Thanks for calling, Finn. I’ll see you soon.”

“Bye, Rey.”

Finn disappears in a blip of blue light.

Rey is left to sit in silence.

She looks out the transparisteel viewport of the _Falcon,_ at Kes’s house below. The front yard is silent and still, the sounds around her dim, muffled by the metal of the ship.

And above her, Yavin Prime, the gas giant, all dark red light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> N-E-B-3-2-4 was Leia's call sign in canon, at some point. Naboo, Endor, Ben. Or: Ben/Bail, I guess, here.
> 
> I tried to hint back in Chapter Two that there was Something about Ben's haircut that was bothering Rey... :)
> 
> This chapter was very Chatty but next chapter will be back to the ACTION!
> 
> I have more or less settled into a Sunday/Thursday posting schedule. Working out well for me. I am still (fingers crossed!) working full-time from home, so I can only write outside regular business hours, hence my less frequent posting schedule than I might be able to do otherwise.


	8. The Desert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you talking about the Screaming Cave?”

“According to their last transmission, they’re waiting for us in… the Forbidden Valley,” Rey says, her voice trailing off at the end.

“That sounds promising,” Jannah mumbles.

“Hopefully the reason it was originally called the Forbidden Valley is no longer functioning,” Ben mutters, stretching his arm up to flick a switch over his head. “Okay, here we go. Falling out of hyperspace in three, two, one--”

Rey settles in her seat with the familiar _lurch_ of the _Millennium Falcon_ slipping out of hyperspace. 

A desert planet appears before them, awash in orange and yellow, darkened by occasional blotches of red and brown, like bruises on a pale peach. At the sight of the planet, Rey’s breath catches, and her heart does a funny little skip. 

She had known Pasaana was a desert planet (“Terrestrial, breathable, arid,” as Jannah had informed them after doing a bit of light research) but she is somehow startled at the sight of it. From space, it looks almost identical to Jakku, as Jakku had looked from space, that glimpse she got as she and Finn fled the planet with BB-8.

Rey has not set foot on Jakku once in the five years since she left it.

She startles when Ben reaches over, and lays his hand over hers.

“You okay?” he asks, dark brown eyes warm, and Rey knows the reason for her sudden stillness has not escaped him.

“Fine,” she says, quickly. “Surprised, that’s all.”

Jannah’s hand squeezes her shoulder. Though Jannah met Rey after her life on Jakku, she’s heard lots about it from Rey since she started her apprenticeship. Rey’s solitary, slavelike life on the desert world had endeared her to Jannah, who’d grown up as an enslaved, brainwashed stormtrooper. It had helped humanize the Jedi to Jannah, who only knew of the Jedi from the legends she’d heard; upon meeting Rey, Ben, and Finn, she’d anticipated them to be much the same.

But they weren’t, by design. This is a good thing.

Ben flies the _Falcon_ down, breaching the atmosphere of Pasaana.

“There are… a lot of ships here,” Rey says, looking at the computer in front of her, which is pinging wildly at the proximity of numerous ships.

“Yeah,” Ben says, and she watches as he jerks the control yoke, the _Falcon_ nearly clipping a more lumbering transport. “Jannah, any ideas?”

“Nothing I saw in the _Falcon’s_ database,” Jannah replies. “But that data is about fifty years old.”

Ben grimaces. “Yeah… I should probably update that.”

Rey snorts, and even Jannah laughs.

Rey checks the coordinates transmitted to her by Poe from the transport he, Rose, and Finn flew to Pasaana. The three of them had arrived about six standard hours earlier, making pretty decent time from Ajan Kloss to this planet in the Expansion Region of the galaxy. Rey plugs the coordinates in, indicating a location only thirty miles away.

“I wonder why they chose the Forbidden Valley,” Ben wonders. “The name doesn’t imply a lot of confidence, as Jannah--”

He breaks off.

They’ve crested over a mountain range, to a world of brilliant color.

Puffs of yellow and red smoke explode in the clear blue sky, shot from small cannons on the sand below. Kites are also high in the air, tethered by thin strings to the earth. Massive crowds litter the desert, crowds speckled with elaborate tents, installations, art exhibits, and shanties. Ships are landing all around the perimeter of the scene, adding to the noise of the chanting crowds, the banging drums, the cheering and screaming.

“What the hell?” Ben says.

“There’s gotta be over a hundred thousand people here,” Jannah says, leaning forward in between Rey and Ben. “Scratch that; two, maybe _three hundred thousand.”_

Rey peers down, studying the lines of ships.

“I can’t see theirs,” she says, frowning. The Resistance doesn’t mark their casual transports, all the better to conceal their movements; Rey has never regretted this choice until now.

“We’ll have to find them the old-fashioned way,” Ben mutters.

He lands the _Falcon_ as far away from the assembled ships as possible, with the goal being for a quick getaway. In the main hold, they gather their things together; Ben loops a light scarf around his neck, while Jannah ties her hair back, and Rey carefully coils her single braid back into a knot. She watches as Jannah hoists her bow over her shoulders, while Ben pulls his gloves on. Rey picks up her satchel, and grabs her lightsaber, smiling as Jannah takes care to hang her newly built lightsaber from her belt.

“Eager to use that?” Rey asks, and Jannah grins.

Rey allows herself to be pleased with her choice of dressing in her usual light shades, as the sun overhead is strong, aiming brilliant rays onto the people below. Jannah adjusts her fitted yellow shirt, scowling a little at the sun, while Ben rolls his shoulders.

“Definitely not a day for a jacket,” he mutters.

The three of them set out over the sand. The vast majority of the creatures they see seem to be from the same species; gray and brown creatures with trunks of varying lengths, all dressed in brightly colored robes. All of these creatures give them appreciative nods as they pass.

“Well, at least outsiders are welcomed here,” Rey murmurs, and Ben nods.

Jannah hurries up, so she’s walking between them.

“I think they’re Aki-Aki,” she says, quietly, and Ben bends his head to hear, while Rey leans in. “The native species. They’re generally peaceful and hospitable to offworlders, and most of their tech is from a pre-starflight age.”

“The kind of culture that might have knowledge of where an ancient text may be hidden,” Ben says, and Jannah nods.

After ten minutes of walking, they reach the end of the rows of starships and transports. The valley stretches below, just as loud and raucous as it’d been from the air; even more so, with the near proximity. The Aki-Aki make up the vast majority of the event’s participants, visible in their brilliant robes, shades of green, purple, red, and blue sticking out from the otherwise monochrome desert. But there are other species in the valley, other aliens, and humans.

And--

“Kriff,” Rey breathes.

Stormtroopers also litter the crowds, their plain white suits sticking out from all the color. Rey squints, but she can’t see any officers, or, thankfully, Knights of Ren.

“Not surprising,” Jannah notes. “The First Order would want to have some kind of presence at a gathering of this size.”

Ben nods, his nose wrinkling with distaste. “Yes, well…”

He carefully raises the scarf around his head, doing his best to mask his face, moving the scarf so only his eyes are visible.

There is always a chance the stormtroopers would see him and recognize him as either Ben Organa-Solo or Kylo Ren. It isn’t always clear which option would be the worst in any situation.

“Let’s reach out,” Ben says. “See if we can find Finn. But stay close.”

Rey closes her eyes.

There is so much _light_ here, so much in the way of joy and euphoria and wonder and delight. She picks through all the lifeforms around her, flipping through them, searching for that smoky, campfire aura that is Finn. The earth to her star. Something grounding, to her soaring.

“Down there,” Rey declares, her eyes snapping open, focusing on a point in the valley below.

Ben smiles, unsurprised she was the first to find Finn. “Lead the way.”

Muscle memory has her reaching out, and seizing Ben’s hand, holding it in hers. He squeezes her hand back, and lets her pull him into the valley, Jannah copying their steps. They weave through the crowds, people and aliens speaking in a whole host of languages Rey can’t recognize. Groups of Aki-Aki have broken out into mysterious dances, moving perfectly in sync to the rapid beating of drums. Scores of kites drift overhead, and Rey fights the urge to crane her neck up to see their designs, determined to locate Finn first.

The smells of cooking food, meats and spices and all kinds of savory aromas, are much harder to avoid.

Rey focuses.

Finn finds her before she sees him. He appears out of the crowd like a mirage, dressed in neat blue trousers and brown shirt, a leather vest and satchel completing the look. He waves, hurrying to her, and Rey grins, as he tackles her in a hug.

“Finally,” Finn declares, and Rey laughs.

Poe and Rose appear behind him, both dressed in lighter clothes, familiar tans and grays of the Resistance. The six of them hug one another, exchanging friendly greetings, casual inquiries.

“First things first,” Rose says. “Do you guys have PUTs?”

“None that can translate anything that’d be said by a species of Pasaana,” Ben admits.

“I thought so,” Rose says. “Here.”

From her satchel, she retrieves three small Personal Universal Translators, passing them to Rey, Ben, and Jannah. The PUT can be worn on the wrist as a bracelet, and Rey does so, sliding it onto her wrist, while Ben does the same, adjusting the Alderaanian asteroid bracelet he’s already wearing to do so, fitting the PUT snugly next to it.

Bracelet affixed, Jannah carefully fixes the earpiece in her ear. “Rose, you’re a lifesaver.”

“I know,” Rose says, deadpan, and Finn laughs. “Lucky these are standard issue nowadays. The transport we took here was well-stocked, and I try to carry a few extra when I’m off-planet, in case something comes up, or my usual PUT breaks.”

“What language do the Aki-Aki speak?” Ben asks, studying his PUT.

“We don’t know,” Poe says. “I don’t think it’s in the PUT’s database. But it’s close enough to a few languages that it’s translatable; the gist of it, anyway.”

“Going by the fashion,” Finn interjects, eyeing Ben’s scarf wrap, “You’ve seen the stormtroopers?”

“Yep,” Ben confirms. “A delightful complication.”

“Yeah, well, just keep your head down,” Poe says, lifting his hand so it’s level with Ben’s head, and then moving it down to his level. “As best as you can, anyway.”

Ben rolls his eyes.

“Have you spoken to anyone yet?” Rey asks.

“A few people,” Finn replies. “Just asking about any, uh… old or weird places. We’re hesitant on asking about the Force; it’s unclear how the Aki-Aki feel about the Force and the Jedi, and if they aren’t fans, things could get ugly real quick.”

“What’s happening here, exactly?” Jannah wonders, gesturing at the general ruckus. 

“It’s the Festival of the Ancestors,” Rose explains. “Happens once every forty-two years, apparently. So we’ve got fantastic luck in being here, smack in the middle of it. It’s about honoring the past and looking forward to the future. They, uh… burn effigies of their ancestors to honor them.”

Though she can’t see his mouth, Rey knows that Ben is frowning, fidgeting with the bracelet on his wrist. “Nice.”

Rose shrugs.

“We should split up a bit,” Poe says, taking charge. “But, you know… Don’t wander too far away.”

“There should be a Jedi each with Poe and Rose,” Ben says, looking at the assembled Jedi. “In case something seems to be going south, or if there’s a danger nearby to be sensed, or a text. Jannah, since you’re our newest Jedi, you should stick with Rey. Finn, you should go with Poe, and Rose, you’re with me.” He looks at Poe. “Sound okay?”

Though Poe is technically Ben’s superior, this is Ben’s mission.

Poe gives an acquiescing nod.

They all trade comlinks, and then split up, the three pairs moving in different directions. Rey and Jannah walk towards what, going by the smells, looks to be the main food area. Rey’s stomach growls, and she glances at Jannah.

“Maybe we should talk to some vendors.”

Jannah snorts. “By buying food from them?”

“Maybe,” Rey allows, and Jannah follows her without complaint.

An Aki-Aki waves them over to his booth, where stacks of delicious smelling cookies are. Rey hands over a couple credits, buying a cookie for her and Jannah each.

“What is this?” Rey asks, and her PUT spits out a series of noises.

The Aki-Aki responds similarly.

 _“Sweet-sand cookie,”_ he says. Rey is unsure if the name is correct or the translation is less than ideal. She takes a bite, and while the texture of the cookie does remind her of sand, the taste is light and warm.

While Jannah speaks with the vendor, Rey walks a little further away, passing a small group of Aki-Aki children. The children are cooing, their small trunks moving with joy, laughing and giggling at what appears to be a staged puppet show. Rey pauses next to their blanket, taking in their clear delight, how the Force around them is friendly and serene. She’d like nothing more than to stay beside them and drink in their light.

A hand tugs at the loose wrap hanging from her waist. Rey looks down, and catches sight of an Aki-Aki woman. The woman waves, and Rey drops into a crouch. The woman is holding a yellow beaded necklace, decorated with small husks shaped like people. Rey bends her head, and the woman puts the necklace around her neck.

 _“Welcome, to you and your ancestors,”_ the woman says, the modulated voice coming through Rey’s earpiece, translated by the PUT.

“Thank you,” Rey says, smiling.

_“What is your name?”_

“I’m Rey.”

The woman cocks her head. _“And your ancestral name?”_

Rey’s smile drops.

“I don’t have one,” she murmurs.

Over the woman’s shoulder, she catches sight of Ben. He’s bent down a bit, the better to listen to an Aki-Aki dressed head-to-toe in light orange robes. Though she can't see the lower half of his face, she can tell by his stiff shoulders and crossed arms that he's frowning. Affection surges through her chest.

Rey looks back at the woman.

“Not yet,” she says, biting her lip to clamp down her wider smile.

They haven’t spoken about it, haven’t had any time to, but Rey thinks Ben won’t mind if she takes his surname. She’s sure Leia would be delighted.

 _“Have another necklace, then,”_ the woman says. _“Since you don’t know your ancestral name. Hold the necklace in your hand, and make a wish for your ancestors, and maybe they will hear you.”_

“Thanks,” Rey says, accepting the necklace, this one purple, to be placed around her neck. She’s less sure about the woman’s other words.

 _“My name is Nambi Ghima,”_ the woman says.

“Pleased to meet you,” Rey replies. “I’m looking for something. Do you know of a location that is… that is considered dangerous, to be avoided?”

_“Are you talking about the Screaming Cave?”_

Rey blinks.

Well that certainly sounds like something Dark.

“Maybe,” she says. “Where is the… Screaming Cave?”

 _“Past the Ikledu Wastes,”_ Nambi says, shrugging a little. _“I’m not sure. No one dares go there.”_

“Why is it called the Screaming Cave?”

 _“It echoes with the screams of the monster that lives in it,”_ Nambi says, and leaves it at that.

 _Monster,_ Rey thinks. _Perfect._

An attacking monster would certainly prevent the Knights of Ren from spending a lot of time with the ancient text they were forced to abandon.

Rey opens her mouth, to thank Nambi for her help and the necklaces, when she freezes, the hair on the back of her neck rising. She jumps to her feet, and spins around, in time to see Rose execute a truly stunning athletic maneuver, with the five-foot-two woman somehow managing to tackle the six-foot-two man that is Ben. The two of them topple, landing hard in the dirt; not a moment later, two laser shots fly through the air where Ben had been standing.

Screams erupt in the immediate vicinity.

“Bounty hunters!” Rose yells, her tinny voice shouting in Rey’s ear via their connected comlinks. 

Rey twists on the spot. She and Jannah lock eyes, and Rey hurries to her apprentice’s side.

“I think we’re looking for a place called the Screaming Cave,” Rey says. “Past the Ikledu Wastes, does anyone know where those are?”

“Due north,” Finn calls. “About twenty miles or so--”

“We need transport,” Jannah says.

Ahead of them, Rey watches as Ben and Rose take off running, the two of them firing their blasters, ducking down behind stalls to avoid the returning fire of not only the plain clothed, masked figures that are undoubtedly bounty hunters, but stormtroopers as well. Ben’s scarf has slipped off his head in the skirmish, and Rey can hear whispers, followed by fingers pointing in his direction.

“Ben, they see you,” Rey says, hurriedly. She and Jannah are running now, elbowing people aside, and Rey hears Jannah’s soft apologies to the Aki-Aki they shove. “They’re here for you, they’re after you!”

“No point in being subtle then,” Ben grunts. And then: “I’ll cover you, Rose. Let’s move.”

A brilliant dark blue blade emerges into the desert air, and the screams begin again in earnest.

* * *

The electric blue of his lightsaber acts as a beacon, and it is easy for Ben to draw the laser fire from the blasters unloading on them, creating a path of escape for Rose. She darts ahead of him, her gray trousers and pale shirt giving her a far better camouflage in the desert than Ben, in his white shirt and dark trousers. But no color of clothes could distract from the lightsaber he wields.

He deflects the lasers, returning them to their shooters, whether that be the stormtrooper or the bounty hunter who has fired it. He spots insignias marking hunters from several organizations, including Qulok’s Fist, House Benelex, and the Bounty Hunters’ Guild. He memorizes as many markers as he can, knowing the Resistance will be curious to know which groups the First Order is engaging with to hunt down their most wanted.

Ben figures there are just minutes remaining between him being the only target and the bounty hunters realizing that the rest of the New Jedi Order is on Pasaana as well.

“There are a couple transport skimmers up here,” Finn says, as Ben dives behind a water trough, a wave of red lasers sending splashes of water high into the air. “Poe’s hotwiring one, should be a ride out of here--”

Yells and screams suddenly start up from another direction, and Ben turns.

Rey is a force of nature, her emerald blades slashing through the air, easily catching the lasers shot her way, sending them spiraling into the sand at her feet, the earth turning burned and scorched. At her side is Jannah, moving just as serenely, with a sparkling white blade.

The reveal of Jannah’s pure white sword had been a surprise; white had been a rare color for a Jedi lightsaber, back in the days of the Old Order and the Republic. But when Ben thought more about it, considering Jannah, her calm personality, her unflinching sense of justice; he realized it made perfect sense. Jannah is the epitome of a good and just spirit. Her sword matches her moral compass, pointing her in the right, good, direction.

Under the brilliant sunlight of Pasaana, Jannah and her white sword are a lighthouse.

The shouts around Ben escalate, cries of _Jedi_ and _Je’daii_ and _Ashla._ Between Ben, Rey, and Jannah, all of the Forbidden Valley, everyone at this Festival, are well-aware that the Jedi are here.

“Rey, Jannah, hold them back as long as you can,” Ben shouts, sprinting now, as the cargo skimmers appear ahead, Poe hurriedly messing around with the engine of one while Finn stands at his side, firing his blaster at the stormtroopers who are pinning them down.

Ben seizes Rose by the back of her shirt, stopping her before she can charge off to help Poe. “Rose, can you hotwire the other one?”

“Duh,” Rose says, and hurries in the direction of the second skimmer, slightly smaller than the one Poe is working on. Ben races after her, taking a protective stance at her side as she rips open the engine compartment, and begins pulling out wires.

There’s a groan, and a rumble, and Poe’s skimmer powers on.

“We’re in business,” Poe calls.

Ben startles as the skimmer at his back roars to life. Rose straightens, scrubbing oil off her fingers.

“Us too!” she shouts.

“Split up,” Ben yells, turning. “Sorry, Rose--”

He grabs her by the waist, shoving her over the railing of the skimmer; she slips over the side with a _huff_ he can hear from his spot on the ground. He glances behind him, and spots Poe leaning over the rudder-like steering component of his skimmer. Finn stands just in front of him, yellow lightsaber ablaze, defending Poe as he works.

Rey and Jannah arrive, both women sprinting for all they’re worth. Rey yells something at Jannah that Ben misses, and the two of them split, with Rey going to the other skimmer, and Jannah racing to Ben and Rose. Ben reaches out, but Jannah doesn’t need his help; he watches as she leaps, using Force Jump to get her body to sail over the railing, landing in the skimmer next to Rose gracefully.

Ben blinks, and then jumps up into the skimmer after her.

The skimmer containing Rey, Finn, and Poe has already taken off, speeding north. Ben stumbles as Rose guns the engine of their own skimmer, sending them flying over the sand after the others.

“Your lightsaber is so _pretty!”_ Rose shouts, beaming at Jannah.

Jannah grins back. “Thanks! I was surprised by the color, but--”

She breaks off, as blaster fire hits the back and sides of their skimmer. The three of them duck down, and Ben glances back; several patrols of stormtroopers are hot on their tails, on treadspeeder bikes, with skimmers and bikes of bounty hunters racing alongside them.

“Hold that thought,” Ben yells, and Jannah nods. The two of them slide towards the back of the skimmer, crouching down, returning fire. Ben fires with his DL-44 pistol, while Jannah uses her energy bow; the lasers from her bow dwarf the lasers from Ben’s pistol.

As he watches, the treadspeeder bikes seem to bend; a stormtrooper ejects from each and soars through the air, flying with some kind of propulsion pack.

“Is that standard issue?” Rey yells over her comlink.

“Not when I was one,” Finn replies. At Ben’s side, Jannah can only gawk.

“Well, they fly now,” Poe says, his disgust evident even over the connection. “Sep--lef---change--”

“Poe, you’re breaking up,” Ben says, shoving aside a crate of kites to get a better angle. The stormtroopers in the air are almost on top of them.

Rose jerks the wheel of their skimmer, and they twist on a hairpin turn to the right, while Poe does the opposite, moving his skimmer to the left. It vanishes behind an outcropping of rock, half the stormtroopers following.

Ben leans back, just managing to avoid the blaster fire that’s landing in the skimmer. As he does so, his hand brushes against a metal canister. He looks down, squinting at the label through the dirt and ash in the air.

_Yellow._

_Yellow,_ Ben thinks. _Yellow what?_

He blinks, and remembers the bursts of yellow smoke in the clear Pasaana sky--

Ben grabs the canister, and throws it into the air.

“What are--” Jannah starts.

Ben watches as it soars through the sky, waits until it’s close to one of the flying stormtroopers, and then he clenches his fist.

The canister explodes in a burst of neon yellow smoke. It immediately casts a screen over the desert, and Ben hears a loud _thunk_ indicating at least one of the bikes has crashed.

Jannah looks at him. “Nice.”

“Thanks,” Ben replies. “Which color do you want?”

Jannah hurls a red canister, causing a blast of red smoke to explode above them, followed by another satisfying crash. Rose glances behind her.

“Are you guys throwing a party back there?”

They race over the sand, and Ben leaves Jannah to defend the back of the skimmer, moving to stand next to Rose. “Do you know where the Ikledu Wastes are?”

“Uh, not really,” Rose admits. “I’d say look for an open, barren space… But that’s kinda this whole planet.”

Ahead of them is more of the same. Uninhabited land, a mesa or two, mountains on either side.

Ben nods, and then he feels a prickle on the back of his neck. 

He turns, in time to see the second skimmer come careening out of a nearby ravine. Its three occupants are cheering and laughing, overwhelmed with their success, and Ben smiles.

“Wait, what’s that?” Rose asks, and he turns back around.

On one of the mesas before them is a small ship. Ben squints, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight. The ship is a transport model of some kind, maybe thirty-five meters long, a couple ion cannons, and on the side--

“That’s an _Oubliette-_ class ship,” Ben yells, excitement soaring in him, recognizing the ship from his time on the asteroid. “It’s the model the Knights of Ren fly--”

“They’re _here?”_ Rose exclaims.

Ben shakes his head. “No, we’d have sensed them by now if they were… I think this must be a ship they abandoned, when they had to leave Pasaana in a hurry… We must be close to the text! Get us closer!”

Rose does so, turning the wheel of the skimmer. Poe, Rey, and Finn are further behind in their own skimmer, but there are no more stormtroopers or bounty hunters following them; only open space.

And then Ben hears a distant _click._

The skimmer is abruptly stopped, the front nose of the skimmer suddenly held in place, forcing the back end to fly up. Ben, Rose, and Jannah are flung through the air, surrounded by bits and pieces of the skimmer, along with all of the canisters, kites, and other materials that had been inside it. Ben hears Rose shriek and Jannah scream, as they soar through the air, before landing, hard, in black sand.

“Ben! Ben, can you hear me?” Rey yells in Ben’s ear.

Ben coughs, the air knocked out of him. He sits up on his elbows, twisting around. Rey, Finn, and Poe have brought their skimmer to a halt, and are running across the plain towards the crash site.

“Yeah,” Ben grunts. “Rose, Jannah? Status check?”

“Gimme a sec,” Rose pants, looking very windswept. Jannah gives Ben a half-hearted wave of her hand.

“What happened?” Poe calls over his comlink.

Rose shakes her head. “Something snared us.”

As she speaks, Ben hears an odd _slurping_ sound.

The ground begins to shake.

Rose screeches, scrabbling around, but she’s already begun to sink. Ben reaches forward, seizing her wrist, while stretching back, his other hand groping around for the edge of the black sand pit. He finds it, and clings.

“Hang on,” Ben snaps. “Jannah, grab--”

But he turns, and sees only Jannah’s hands, reaching desperately for the surface, as she vanishes into the sand.

“Jannah!” Rose wails, waving her arm wildly through the sand; she’s also sinking, fast, as is Ben, even with his hand clinging to the edge.

Rey, Finn, and Poe have finally reached the pit. Finn races around to the edge of the place where Jannah had sunk, peering into the black sand.

“I don’t see her!” he cries.

Rey wraps her hands around Ben’s wrist, sliding down to the dirt, planting her feet on the edge of the pit.

“I’ve got you,” she pants, Poe hovering at her side.

Ben groans, as the weight of Rose pulls him down. He stares, horrorstruck, as she sinks to her shoulders. She’s wriggling around desperately, trying to use the arm Ben is not holding to keep her head above the surface.

“I’m gonna sink,” she gasps. “Ben, let go, I’m pulling you down!”

“Not a chance,” Ben replies, even as he feels the right side of his body jerking down with Rose. Under the surface, his lower half can feel only sand. “Finn, where’s Jannah?”

“I can feel her, but I can’t see her,” Finn reports, scurrying back to Rey’s side.

Rey is panting, using all of her strength and weight to keep Ben, and by extension Rose, at the surface. She adjusts her grip so she’s holding onto his hand rather than his wrist. Poe has settled behind her, doing his best to anchor her with his arms around her middle, the four of them in a strange line.

Rose gasps, tilting her head up to the sky, desperately trying to keep her face above the sand. 

Ben watches as his right arm, still clinging to her wrist, slips below the sand. With Rey still holding on to his left hand, he feels like he’s being torn in two. He turns his head to look at her.

“Let me go, Rey!”

“N-No,” Rey says, stuttering with the exertion. Poe is digging the heels of his boots into the sand, while Finn is rummaging around the remnants of the skimmer, searching for something to pull Ben, Rose, and Jannah out of the sinking sand pit.

“Honey, you’re gonna tear my arm out of its socket,” Ben snaps. “I’m not letting go of Rose.”

 _“Gwah,”_ Rose gasps, flailing.

He can feel her weight, her bare wrist in his hand. His shoulders and above are all that’s not submerged. Ben wiggles his feet, and finally feels it; air.

“There’s a pocket of air,” he says. “I can feel it below my feet. Jannah must be down there already. I’m not going to leave them. Stay up here and see if you can find a way out for us.”

Rey stares at him, aghast. “Ben--”

“Rey,” Ben interrupts. “Let me go. Trust me.”

He holds her gaze, imploring her. And then slowly, like it’s physically paining her to do it, she lets go of his hand.

Ben takes a deep breath as he slips under the surface of the sand.

It is not a long fall. He’s only submerged for maybe twenty seconds before his body slithers through the pit, tumbling through open air, landing on rock, nearly on top of Rose.

“Ow,” Ben groans.

_“Ben! Rose!”_

Jannah kneels next to him, Rose sprawled at his other side. Both women look disheveled, bits of black sand and dirt stuck on their hair and clothes, but otherwise unharmed.

“You okay?” Ben asks.

“Fine,” Jannah replies. “There doesn’t seem to be anything here, it’s just--”

The three of them look up, as the sand above them shifts.

Ben sighs. “For the love of--”

He clambers to his feet, just in time to catch Rey in his arms. She gasps, her arms flailing, nearly clipping him in the head.

“What part of _trust me_ did you not understand?” Ben demands.

“I thought we should all stay together,” Rey retorts. Her statement is echoed by the _thunks_ indicating that Poe and Finn have also emerged from the sand pit. Ben rolls his eyes.

He sets Rey down on her feet, as she brushes black sand off her clothes. Poe and Finn are getting up, and for a moment, it’s relatively quiet, as the six of them clean themselves off, and take in their new environment.

“Well, it’s dark,” Poe declares, reaching for the glowrod at his hip. “Let’s--”

He breaks off at the sound of identical _hisses,_ and the space is illuminated in separate beams of blue, green, yellow, and white light.

Poe and Rose exchange a look.

“Show-offs,” Rose mumbles.

“If you’d rather walk in a cave in the dark, be my guest,” Finn says, and Rose shakes her head.

“Is this it?” Jannah asks. “The Screaming Cave?”

Rey frowns. “This isn’t really a cave, though. It’s more like…”

She’s only ignited one of her green blades, using her lightsaber primarily as a light rather than a weapon. With the single beam, she points in front of her, revealing an open shaft. Ben looks behind him, and sees the same thing.

“Tunnels,” he murmurs.

“Naturally made tunnels?” Rose wonders. “Or…”

She trails off. Ben doesn’t want to think about what kind of _natural creature_ could have made these tunnels.

“Which way?” Finn asks, and Ben blinks, distracted for a moment by the memory of his time on the asteroid with the Knights of Ren. When it was Lior in the tunnel, glowrod shining side to side. When it was Vesper who turned to Ben and asked for guidance. On Pasaana now, he hesitates.

“I think we should head closer to the cliffs,” Rey says. “Towards the east. They looked like the most likely place to find a cave.”

She glances at Ben. He gives an acquiescing nod.

They set out, Rey leading, Ben and Rose right behind her, with Poe, Jannah, and Finn behind them. 

“Cute necklaces,” Ben says, in an aside to Rey. He isn’t sure, but he thinks the husks are meant to be people-shaped.

She smirks. “Thanks. A woman gave them to me; she gave me the second one as a gesture of sympathy for my lack of ancestral name.”

“Oh,” Ben says, taken aback.

Rey glances at him. “I told her I didn’t have one… yet.”

She seems to have been aiming to sound teasing, but by the end of it, she sounds only shy. Ben blinks.

“Right,” he manages. “Right. Um… Do you want… mine?”

It’s a name with a _lot_ of baggage. Solo is a name synonymous with thievery, the criminal underworld, and Outer Rim cantinas. Organa is a name reminiscent of death, annihilation, and war. Together, the name _Organa-Solo_ says a lot. If Ben were less proud of who his parents are, he might suggest doing away with both surnames and picking a new one at random.

But Rey only looks at him. “Of course I do.”

 _Of course I do._ Easy as that.

“Good,” Ben whispers, and Rey grins, a light flush roaming over her face in the electric light of their lightsabers. She pulls one of the necklaces off her head, tossing it over Ben’s with aplomb, a movement of gratitude and acceptance. She then tugs the necklace to her, forcing Ben to bend so she can kiss him. He smiles into it.

While she continues on into the tunnel, Ben slows a little, bending his head to speak to Rose.

“What did you mean, something snared us?” he asks.

“We ran into something,” Rose replies. “Like a… a force field of some kind. An invisible tripwire; as soon as the skimmer touched it, we were snared, and it crashed us.”

Ben’s blood runs cold. “A trap?”

Rose grimaces. “Yeah… Someone on Pasaana didn’t want anyone out here.”

But Ben thinks about how they’d been going one direction, until Ben spotted the Knights of Ren ship, and had Rose steer them another way. How they didn’t hit the tripwire until they were almost to the ship.

“Kriff,” Ben whispers. “I’m an idiot.”

Rose pauses. “Huh?”

Ben turns on the spot, causing Poe to nearly run into him.

“They knew we would come,” Ben says.

“Who?” Poe asks, frowning.

“The Knights of Ren,” Ben says. “Lior and Hansa were talking about Pasaana while we were on the asteroid, while I was with them. And they understand that I must be looking for anything to explain what that staff is, and Pasaana may very well be my only clue. They knew we’d come here.”

“The bounty hunters,” Jannah breathes, aghast.

Ben nods. “They were tipped off. If the First Order had deployed a full squadron of stormtroopers here, we would’ve seen them, and gotten spooked. By relying more on bounty hunters, they masked their presence here. By the time we get out of these tunnels…”

“There could be a full battalion,” Poe murmurs.

“I’ve led you all into a trap,” Ben whispers, bereft. “We need to… We need to find a way out of these tunnels as soon as possible. Maybe we can--”

He spins around, turning at the same time as Finn and Jannah.

“Rey?” Ben calls.

She’s gone.

He can still feel her, her presence, as it was her brilliant light that reached out to him just a heartbeat ago. He follows it down the tunnel, the others all hot on his heels, until Rey’s light spikes, as clear as a flashing neon sign: _STOP._

Ben skids to a halt, and this time, Poe does run into him.

“Wait,” Ben whispers.

“For _what?”_ Finn demands.

Ben shakes his head, bewildered. Slowly, he moves forward, and as anticipated, the others follow.

They round a corner, and immediately see why Rey has stopped.

A massive snake dominates the space, taking up almost the entire tunnel with its form. The snake’s scaly body is a rugged brown, its six eyes pitch black in the dark space, now lit only with blue, yellow, and white lights from assembled lightsabers. There is no sign of Rey’s emerald blade; only the Jedi herself is crouched on the ground, in a small space among the snake’s coils, no weapon in hand.

 _“Rey,”_ Jannah whispers.

Rey turns her head, looking at her friends with wide eyes. 

The snake does not so much as hiss as roar, its jaws snapping dangerously in the others’ direction. The inside of its mouth is all white, lined with alarmingly sharp fangs, and the hint of a grossly curved tongue. The smell is abhorrent, Ben’s gag reflex trying to kick in.

“Imma blast it,” Poe mutters.

“Don’t blast it,” Finn advises.

“Oh, I don’t like snakes,” Rose squeaks.

Ben has eyes only for Rey.

Slowly, she turns back around, facing the snake. As he watches, her right arm stretches out, fingers splayed, coming to rest on the side of the snake’s tail; deep, bloody cuts mar the snake’s hard skin.

She closes her eyes.

As Ben watches, a soft blue light emerges from Rey’s palm, to beam down onto the torn skin below. The snake whines, its head bobbing, eyes closing and opening slowly, its noises phasing out to something like a coo. Rey looks up, opening her eyes to meet the snake’s gaze. The two of them seem to stare at each other.

Ben starts to smile.

And then the snake moves, its tail undulating, body roving, carefully skirting Rey. The snake slithers away, disappearing down a tunnel, leaving Rey kneeling on the hard earth.

“Rey, are you okay?” Rose demands, rushing forward, Jannah at her side.

“Fine,” Rey replies. 

She’s rubbing her right hand with her left methodically. Ben steps forward, pushing her left hand away and taking her right hand in his.

“What was that?” Poe asks.

“Force healing,” Ben murmurs. Small flickers of blue light emanate from his hand, spilling onto Rey’s, disappearing into her skin. “She transferred a bit of energy from herself to the snake.”

Rose’s mouth forms the shape of the word _wow._ Poe looks torn between admiration and exasperation. Finn and Jannah are more appreciative, with Jannah squeezing Rey’s shoulder and Finn brushing her back.

“Sorry, if I scared you,” Rey says, looking at the others. “Just now, and with my message in the Force. I didn’t want you all to come tearing in here; I was worried the snake might squish me.”

“Or, like, eat you,” Rose mutters.

They continue on, choosing to go down the tunnel the snake did not go. The air is thicker down here, less oxygenated, and Ben feels his body begin to sweat, a nervous tic. Yet they keep on, the six of them, talking little but walking together, eyes open for any possible threats, now including snakes.

“Oh, here we go,” Ben murmurs.

A shaft of sunlight appears in the cave, a crack in the makeshift ceiling. Sand falls silently through the hole, drifting down to create a tiny dune. Ben stands in the light, and peers up.

“Right,” he says. “Rey--”

She’s already gone, jumping straight up. Ben sighs.

After a moment, she calls: “It’s clear!”

Finn follows her, and the two of them peer over the hole, their heads silhouetted in blurry halos from the harsh sun. With Jannah and Rose’s help, Ben heaves Poe up for Rey and Finn to pull through the hole and into daylight. Rose goes next, followed by Jannah and Ben.

Ahead of them lies a solid wall of rock, split in the middle: a crevasse.

Ben glances behind them, and sees, far below, the mesa with the First Order ship, just above the crash site of the skimmer.

“I vote,” Finn says, “That we don’t take that tunnel back down.”

“No more snakes,” Rose agrees.

They begin their journey through the crevasse, walking in a single-file line, due to the tight space. Ben leads the way, Rey right behind him, the others following. As he walks, he takes in how quiet it is; there is no breeze, no rustling rock, no fauna of any kind. He glances behind him, and sees his concern and confusion mirrored on Rey’s face.

Poe voices it for them: “It’s really quiet.”

They reach the end of the crevasse, and Ben stops.

He can only think: _This is an amphitheater._

There are stairs and seats, carved inelegantly out of the sand-colored rock, stretching from the space directly in front of them to a point about ten feet down, where the rock is suddenly completely smooth, creating a twenty foot tall wall. At the apex of this space is an opening into the mountain itself; a cave.

“What the…” Rose starts.

“The symbol,” Finn whispers. “Ben, do you see that symbol? On the ground.”

It’s a little hard to tell, with the brilliant sunlight and the dust, but Ben squints, and sees an outline of a circle, with sharp, mountain-like shapes on either side of it.

The emblem of the Sith Order.

With the near overwhelming silence of the space, the sound of something rustling in the cave explodes like a bomb. The sound of something heavy stepping on the earth; the scratching of a sharp claw in the dirt; the ragged, drooling breath of something that is hungry.

A thrill of fear runs along Ben’s spine.

He unclips his lightsaber from his belt, as Rey, Finn, and Jannah mirror him.

“Rose, Poe,” Ben murmurs. “Wait up here. Do not move. Do not make a noise. Don’t let it know you’re here.”

A dark, roiling presence curves out of the cave, like a tendril of noxious smoke.

Ben walks forward, climbing down the stone stairs, until he stands at the top of the wall, looking down to the pit. Long claw marks have scarred the stone below.

He turns around, to where his two Knights and apprentice are gathered, watching him.

“Don’t be afraid,” Ben says, softly. “Take deep breaths, and do not linger on your anger or pain; it has just woken up, and it will try to feast on your negative emotions. Our goal here is to kill it. Don’t show it mercy; it is not a natural creature.”

“What… What is it?” Jannah asks, staring at the dark mouth of the cave below.

“Judging by the Sith emblem below,” Ben says, “This was a creature that was altered by Sith alchemy, an experiment of genetic engineering with the power of the Dark Side of the Force. Because of this, it’ll be smarter, more vicious, and more lethal than a regular animal. It’s a monster.”

Rey’s eyes clear in understanding. “Sithspawn.”

As if to confirm its identity, the creature in the cave emits a noise that is not so much a roar as it is a _scream._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I liked the Pasaana sequence! It was entertaining. The scene where Rey heals the snake is the best scene of TROS, in my opinion; it says so much about her character. And it was so easy to include Rose in this............
> 
> The Knights of Ren ship that Ben sees is NOT the same as the one on the asteroid. I imagine they have more than one ship.
> 
> If you can believe it, I am currently writing Chapter 13 and haven't even gotten to, like, the big battle. #RIPMe


	9. Blood Of My Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The brightest light casts the darkest shadow, Ben.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: violence, blood, descriptions of injuries, and a [Terentatek.](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,pg_1,q_80,w_800/18losnlueeooojpg.jpg)

Fear, fear like Rey has never experienced before, zips through her veins like a freezing cold wildfire. Her eyes are locked on the mouth of the dark cave twenty feet below. A series of loud, even thumps, the sound of two legs marching forward, reverberate around the stone amphitheater. Rey tries to match her racing heartbeat to the consistent stomps.

“Force meld,” Ben murmurs, and Rey’s eyes snap to him automatically. He looks at her, then Finn, then Jannah. “Connect to me.”

Rey blinks, and does just that.

Force meld is a strange thing. It gives Rey the feeling that Ben is standing right behind her, so close he is practically breathing down her neck. Slightly dimmer are the presences of Finn and Jannah; it feels like they are in the same room, but in a different corner. Ben is the one anchoring them.

“Good,” he says, and his voice echoes oddly, in Rey’s mind and the arid air of the desert landscape. “Let’s attack from each side. There’s a chance its skin will be impervious to lightsabers; if that’s the case, I’m sure we’ll find out quickly. And if that’s the case, search out possible weak spots; eyes, feet, ears, bellies.”

“Any ideas what kind of sithspawn it is?” Finn wonders.

Ben’s smile is wry. “Unfortunately, I know exactly as much as you.”

This is not comforting; Rey glances at Finn, who meets her gaze, her anxiety reflected in his similar brown eyes.

The steps are getting closer. Small pebbles littering the ground begin to tremble.

And then the monster steps out of the cave.

It’s massive, easily twice Rey’s height, maybe even twice Ben’s, with rough brown skin splotched with odd blue patches. Its eyes are black slits in its sharply angled face, the monster’s skin covered in spines and spikes, giving it the look of a roaming, lethal cactus. The monster’s mouth is large, filled with sharp fangs, flanked by tusks, ending in an angular pointed chin. It walks on two legs ending in two-toed feet, while its arms are shorter, each with three claws rather than fingers.

The monster lifts its head, and Rey swears it is looking directly at her.

It _screams._

“Feel that?” Ben asks.

“Feel what?” Finn hisses. _“Terror?”_

“Sure,” Ben replies, not missing a beat. “But do you feel the monster itself?”

“It’s Force sensitive,” Jannah says.

Rey feels it too; the monster has a presence, as slick and dark as an oil spill. She can feel it _reaching,_ stretching, and searching for--

“Us,” Rey breathes. “It’s… It’s hungry for _us.”_

“Sithspawn were known to develop a taste for Force sensitives,” Ben explains. “All that engineering with the Dark Side of the Force… they grew to want to feed on the Light exclusively. To much of the galaxy, they were better known as _Jedi hunters.”_

“Guess it’s this thing’s lucky day,” Finn mutters.

Ben shrugs. “I’m sure it _thinks_ so. But it won’t be. Right?”

“Right,” Rey and Jannah chorus in unison. Finn offers a gruff nod, glancing behind him. Rose and Poe are still hunched near the entrance to the crevasse, staring below with clear horror.

Ben drops to a crouch, tapping the hilt of his lightsaber methodically against the sand, studying the monster with a thoughtful expression. It is so like the way he looks when encountering something as benign as an exotic piece of tech or food that part of Rey wishes to laugh.

“I’m not optimistic about how much damage our lightsabers will do against that skin,” he murmurs. “We might have to rely more on Alter abilities than anything else.”

“I believe you,” Rey says, sharply.

The monster below is still staring at her. Its fangs are making a strange clicking noise; almost like it's licking its teeth, anticipating feasting on her.

“I don’t think we have a lot of time to plan, Ben,” Finn says, his anxiety turning to disgust at the monster.

“No,” Ben agrees. “We don’t.”

He straightens.

“Jannah, this is your first battle with your new sword,” he says, speaking more quickly now. “Let it guide you as much as you guide it. Remember, _all are entwined, the crystal, the blade, and the heart; you are one.”_

Jannah nods. She’s gripping the hilt of her lightsaber tightly in both hands.

“Finn, I know your shoulder feels fine now,” Ben continues. “But _please_ be careful; do your best to avoid aggravating it, okay?”

“Okay,” Finn agrees.

Ben looks at Rey.

“Keep an eye on your apprentice,” he advises. “She’ll fight like a Knight, but she’s still an apprentice. Know her limits, as well as your own.”

“Of course,” Rey replies.

“The Force is with us,” Ben murmurs, looking at the three Jedi. “Rely on it, and each other. We’ll get through this together. Got it?”

“Got it,” Rey, Finn, and Jannah reply.

Ben smiles.

And then he turns, and leaps off the ledge.

Rey, Finn, and Jannah hasten to follow, their lightsabers igniting in synchronized bursts of colored plasma.

The monster is ready for them. Darkness seeps out of it, like waves spilling from an ocean.

As Rey lands in the dirt, the monster bends forward, its two front limbs scratching the soil, dragging at the edge of the Sith emblem before it. The monster cocks its head, eyes seemingly studying the four Jedi before it, all ready in their preferred lightsaber Form; Jannah is poised to attack with Ataru, while Rey and Finn are ready with Djem So, and Ben with Niman. All aggressive Forms, designed for rapid attacks and quick defensive moves.

The monster blinks, and then it dives for Ben.

The strongest, brightest Force user among them.

Rey isn’t surprised.

For a monster that is starved, Ben must look _delicious._

She had anticipated this move, as had Finn, and so the two of them spring to the side, Rey on the monster’s left, and Finn on its right. They leap forward in unison, and strikes from blades of yellow and green erupt on the monster’s hide. It emits a strangled wail, and Rey spins eagerly; only to find her deep cut has left only a mark like a singe.

 _Superficial cuts,_ Finn calls in her head. _This thing is tough._

 _As we thought,_ Ben replies. His face is tense and tight as he telekinetically _yanks_ the monster’s head forward, in order to slice at its neck with his lightsaber. Jannah pops up out of nowhere, following up his cut with an acrobatic leap over the monster’s exposed throat. 

_Get into Niman, Rey,_ Ben directs.

Niman is particularly advantageous for a Jedi wielding a dual-bladed sword, but Niman is not Rey’s preferred technique as it isn’t as aggressive as she prefers, as Djem So allows her to be. But Rey follows Ben’s direction, stepping into a low-guard stance, the two blades of her lightsaber positioned in front of her, tilted to the ground and sky. She moves into the _Rising Whirlwind,_ swinging her sword around her body, a hurricane of a rabid attack. Finn manages to knock the monster back with a superb cut executed by sliding on his side, and it is easy enough for Rey to dive forward and throw herself under the monster’s body, her two blades spinning cuts on the monster’s softer underbelly.

It shrieks in response.

 _Excellent,_ Ben calls.

Jannah is her own mini whirlwind, recognizable only as a blur of white plasma and black hair, her hair floating around her head like a fast-moving stormcloud. She moves beautifully with her lightsaber, treating it as casually and naturally as a limb, switching it back and forth in her hands for the better angle of attack. If they were not in the middle of a battle with an evil creature, Rey would like to sit and watch her apprentice fight.

The monster suddenly howls, its head swinging side to side. Blood gushes out of the side of its head, where one of its tusks has apparently been torn out of its skull, left hanging onto bone by a thin tendril of muscle.

Rey looks past the monster, and sees Ben. He’s frowning, his left hand in a tight fist, head cocked as he surveys the monster.

 _Rey!_ Finn yells.

Rey jerks up, snapped out of her staring. The monster has turned on her.

She leaps up into the air, relying on Force Jump to propel her up. One of the monster’s arms stretches up, and while she manages to sever one of its digits, another digit lands a swipe at her bare calf. Agony, hot as a branding iron, seizes her. She screams.

_Rey! Rey!_

She lands hard, in the dirt, gasping in soil. She manages to spin to her side, just in time to avoid the monster’s arm from landing in her gut. Sprawled on her back, her leg twitching with pain, she stares up at the monster as it stalks towards her--

And is abruptly stopped.

She looks through the monster’s two back legs, and sees Ben, standing awkwardly. His lightsaber hilt lies on the ground, his legs are tense and planted in the sand, the muscles of his arms tight, like he’s carrying something heavy. As she watches, he grits his teeth, and takes a haggard step backward.

The monster snarls, and stumbles from Rey.

 _I’ve got it,_ Ben whispers. _Slow it down._

Rey pulls herself together. She lifts her hand, splaying her fingers in the direction of the monster’s brain.

 _Sleep,_ she whispers.

The monster’s eyes twitch.

It wails, a little mournfully.

 _Blind it,_ Ben calls.

Finn dives forward, driving his yellow sword into one of the monster’s legs. He raises his free hand, sending a blinding flash of light in the monster’s face. It stumbles, hazy. On its other side, Jannah copies Finn, a flash of light blinding the monster’s other set of eyes. It trips back, moving away from Rey in confusion.

 _Stun it,_ Ben directs.

Jannah and Finn join Rey, engaging in Force Stun; between the three of them, the monster begins to slip to the dirt. Eventually, it falls flat on its belly, legs splayed awkwardly.

Ben closes his eyes.

Keeping his left hand raised and directed at the monster, holding it in place, he tightens the fingers of his right hand.

And then jerks it to the side.

As he does so, one of the monster’s back legs is torn off the monster’s body, as if severed by an invisible sword.

The monster _screams._

“Get _in_ there!” Ben yells, outloud now.

Finn and Jannah leap in. Rey drops her efforts at stunning the monster, turning all her focus in on telekinetically keeping the monster’s head pinned. Over its heaving body, she sees Ben, now looking at the monster’s right front limb, the limb closest to Rey, still lying in the dirt. As she watches, the bone of the limb _snaps_ in two.

The monster’s screams are endless.

Jannah and Finn are carving it up, lightsabers diving in and out of the monster’s body. Jannah jumps over the monster’s form, moving towards the head--

“Jannah,” Rey calls, and throws her lightsaber.

Jannah catches it in her free hand, switching on one of the green blades. With two blades now, she thrusts forward, sinking the two beams of plasma into the monster’s neck. An unpleasant gurgling noise comes from the monster’s throat, as its eyes roll up into the back of its head. Its remaining limbs twitch haphazardly, before eventually stilling.

The Jedi don’t move until the dust has settled.

And then Rey’s vision is filled by Jannah and Finn, the two of them leaning over her. She feels gloved hands on her calf, and cries out at the sudden sensation on her fevered skin, twisting her head to look. Ben is kneeling at her feet, turning her leg carefully, studying the ugly scratch on her skin. The scratch is twisted, serrated, and deep; pain as sharp as an electric shock runs through Rey’s bloodstream.

“Kriff, it hurts,” she gasps.

“Probably venomous,” Ben murmurs, tearing his gloves off. “Dark Side alchemy.”

The sound of skidding feet comes from the side, and Rey turns her head as best as she can. The forms of Poe and Rose appear like mirages out of the sunlight.

“I’ve got a medpac,” Rose says, dropping to her knees beside Ben.

“Bacta, I hope,” Rey says, with a gasp of agony.

“You bet, babe.”

Poe’s nose wrinkles as he unscrews the lid of his canteen. “Rey, this is gonna hurt like a bastard--”

The splash of water in the cut has Rey biting her lip to keep from screaming. Finn and Jannah take her hands in theirs, giving her something to cling to.

“Ben,” Rey groans.

“Finn, Jannah, you’ll need to help me with this,” Ben says in lieu of responding to Rey directly. “First, Poe, help me roll her over.”

Rey cries out as Ben and Poe gently push her onto her back. Poe’s worried face appears in her vision, an apologetic look on his face.

“Finn, put your hands on her hip and ribs, Jannah on her thigh and knee,” Ben continues. “We need to contain the venom before it can spread further. Rey, honey, where’s it burning?”

Rey grits her teeth. “Not yet above my knee.”

“Good, we’ll catch it.”

She feels Finn and Jannah move, their hands coming to rest on her body as directed. She squeezes her eyes shut tightly, as if being blind might make her numb to the pain. Her right hand reaches aimlessly, until her fingers catch on a familiar metal hilt, her lightsaber. She grips it in her hand, eager for something to cling to. Her left hand flutters in the air for a moment over her chest, until she feels something thin and rough; the necklace gifted to her by the child in the Forbidden Valley.

She grips it, her fingers curving together, the pad of her thumb tight on the band of her ring.

 _“Breathe,_ Rey,” Ben snaps, and Rey takes a deep, stuttering breath. “Focus. _Curato salva._ Detoxify Poison.”

 _Right,_ Rey thinks. The Force ability related to ridding the body of poisons. She knows the theory, but has never tried it before; has never _needed_ to try it before.

With the pain like a vibroblade in her skull, she turns her focus inward.

_Breathe._

From somewhere far away, she hears Ben: “... Just like with your shoulder, Finn. We’re going to heal her, all three of us.”

“Will we be enough?” Jannah asks, quietly. “Her skin is turning black…”

 _That’s not good,_ Rey thinks.

 _“Yes,”_ Ben says, forcefully. “We just have to focus. Reach for the Force; grip it. Imagine the Light pouring into Rey. Imagine it in her bloodstream. Imagine it in her bones. Now… put it there.”

 _In me,_ Rey thinks. _In me._

She grips the metal of her lightsaber under her fingers, anchoring herself. She clings to the necklace in her other hand.

_“Have another necklace, then,” the woman says. “Since you don’t know your ancestral name. Hold the necklace in your hand, and make a wish for your ancestors, and maybe they will hear you.”_

_Help me,_ Rey thinks. _Help me._

She does not expect anyone.

She’s never had any family stand in support of her, move to help her.

But she’s clinging to a necklace made for the rare Festival of the Ancestors in a hand that wears a ring made up of beloved jewelry pieces of two families, and the man who gave her the ring has his bare hands pressed to her skin, doing his very best to connect with the Force and heal her, leaving his connection to the Force completely open and exposed to anyone who might be nearby.

Someone who might be called by the ring made up of parts of a broken family.

Someone who might have visited this amphitheater. Someone who might have greeted the sithspawn. Someone who might have created it.

Someone who once meditated with the broken crystal in Rey’s own lightsaber, the lightsaber Rey is gripping like her life depends on it. And maybe it does.

A strange feeling of concentrated sunlight envelops her, and Rey’s eyes snap open.

Her entire body is highlighted in misty blue, not unlike the color that had outlined the Force spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the cave on Ahch-To. Poe and Rose have both instinctively jumped away, distancing themselves from this odd phenomenon. The Jedi remain close, their hands on Rey, but she can see the bewilderment and alarm in Finn and Jannah’s faces.

But Ben is perfectly still, and while his hands remain on her leg, his gaze is up, focused on something above Rey.

She cranes her neck back, and gasps.

A man is standing over her, highlighted in the same blue light. His hands are outstretched, palms down, directly over Rey. He’s dressed in the long robes emblematic of the Old Jedi Order, though his clothes are a shade darker than she’d expect based on the drawings of Jedi she’s seen. He’s tall, close to Ben’s height, with fluffy blond hair brushing his shoulders that reminds Rey of what Ben’s hair looks like when it’s that long, and his face is narrow with high cheekbones, like Ben’s, and there is something in the line of his mouth that reminds her of Leia’s disapproving pout…

The Jedi looks down at her--

\--and _winks._

Hot, scalding heat suddenly concentrates in the scratch on her leg, and Rey can’t bite down her shriek.

A moment later, it abates, so sudden and rapid, like it’d never happened.

Rey sits up on her elbows, as Jannah gasps. The scratch on her leg is raised and pink, a clean scar; it looks like it’s several weeks old.

“Poison’s gone,” Finn says, unnecessarily. 

Rose leans over to get a better look. Poe stays in place, staring in confusion from Rey’s leg to the unknown Jedi and back.

“Who are _you?”_ Poe asks.

“Anakin Skywalker,” says Ben.

Now that Ben has named him, Rey can’t imagine how she didn’t know right away. Of _course_ this is Anakin Skywalker, Leia’s biological father, Ben's biological grandfather. Pieces of Anakin’s features are reflected in Ben’s suddenly pale face.

He finally turns his gaze away from his grandfather, to look at Rey. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Rey says, sitting up all the way now. She reaches forward, brushing her fingers over the scratch, now only a scar.

“That scar won’t ever go away completely,” Ben murmurs. “The poison will have ensured that much. The Sith would be proud to scar a Jedi; not to mention it identifies one that escaped one of their traps. They would hunt you.”

“Neat,” Rey mutters.

They get to their feet, Rey letting Ben pull her up. Her leg feels a bit sore, like she’s spent the whole day practicing lightsaber Forms. Decidedly not like she got carved up by a Sithspawn.

She turns around. Anakin still stands there, watching them with a somber expression.

“Thank you,” Rey says, softly.

Anakin inclines his head. “Thank your fellow Jedi, Rey. I sped-up the process, working off what they had already done, and were prepared to do.”

Rey isn’t the least bit surprised that he knows her name. Obi-Wan knew her and Ben as well.

Jannah hands Rey her lightsaber, and she takes it, but does not move to return it to the clip on her belt. Instead, she twists it around in her hands. She wonders if Anakin knows the crystal he once took from Ilum rests, in pieces, inside the hilt.

But Anakin is no longer looking at her. Instead, he’s staring at Ben, something forlorn and longing in his muted blue eyes.

“Ben,” Anakin starts, but Ben shakes his head.

“Please tell me why you’re here,” Ben says, and Rey starts at the _fury_ in Ben’s tone. Of all the reactions she would have anticipated from him at meeting his long-dead former Dark Sider grandfather, _fury_ was not high on the list. “I didn’t call you.”

“No,” Anakin agrees. “Rey did.”

Ben glances at Rey, frowning, and Anakin clarifies: “The worshippers, revelers, who attend the Festival of the Ancestors bring a great amount of spiritual energy to this desert. The gap between dead ancestors and living descendants turns subliminal. I was already near when Rey called for help, while wearing the ring that contains a jewel that once belonged to my wife, with a hand that wields the crystal that was once mine, while a man of my last living blood knelt at her feet. I answered her plea.”

“But we didn’t _need_ you,” Ben says. “You just said that.”

Anakin raises one eyebrow. Rey finally notices that a thin scar bisects the right side of his face, and she thinks, naturally, of Bail, and his similarly placed scar. “Would you wish her to suffer longer?”

Ben’s hand clenches into a fist. “Of course not. Thank you. We have work to do now. Goodbye.”

 _“Ben,”_ Rey says, surprised.

Finn and Jannah are gawking at Ben, clearly also stunned at Ben’s clear contempt for his dead relative. Ben is nearly always polite. Poe and Rose seem to still be grappling with the revelation they’re looking at a ghost.

“I can help you, Ben,” Anakin says.

“You never have before,” Ben snarls. “Why start now?”

 _“Ben!”_ Rey exclaims.

Ben looks at her. There is a storm of emotion in his dark eyes: anger, frustration, fear, pain… and hurt.

He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes tightly, before opening them again, to face his grandfather.

“Have you been here before?” he asks. 

“No,” Anakin replies.

“What about the Emperor?”

“No, not that I know of.”

Ben considers this. “Did either of you know of this place? Between that Sithspawn and the Sith emblem below our feet… This was, at one point, a Temple for the Sith.”

Rey surveys the amphitheater with new eyes. Did the Sith fight their own creature? Was it a test of some kind? The Jedi had Trials for their Knights, perhaps the Sith had something similar.

“I didn’t know, and I don’t believe Palpatine did either,” Anakin replies. “I’m sure he would have tried to harness the Terentatek for his own purposes.”

“The _what_ now?” Finn asks.

Anakin offers him a grim smile. “Terentatek. That’s the kind of Sithspawn you just slew. Pretty impressively, I have to add.”

Finn looks appropriately pleased, while Jannah hides her smile behind her palm.

“So you have no idea what awaits us inside the cave?” Ben summarizes.

Anakin studies him, and then his eyes slide to Rey.

“Only what you take with you,” he murmurs.

_“During my training, I encountered a lure from the Dark Side,” he says. “The cold, the sense that something was wrong… It called to me. Master Yoda cautioned me. I asked him what was in there.” Luke looks at Rey with sharp, pale blue eyes that have seen so much more than Rey thinks she ever will. “He told me: ‘Only what you take with you.’”_

_Only what you take with you._

_“The Dark Side will prey on what you desire most, and what you feel conflicted over,” Luke murmurs. “It will give you the answers it thinks will make you most malleable. And then it will watch as you destroy yourself and everything you love.”_

“Will you walk with us?” Rey asks.

Anakin looks at her, and then turns to Ben. His intent is obvious; he is asking Ben for permission.

After a tense stare-down, Ben nods.

With the Force ghost trailing them, the group walks into the cave.

* * *

Beams of blue, green, yellow, and white plasma, along with the light blue haze of a Force ghost, light their way.

While Jannah, Finn, Rose, and Poe talk among themselves, walking behind Ben, he can feel two sets of eyes glued to his back, a pair that belong to a living woman and a pair belonging to a dead man. He supposes Rey and Anakin staring at him is better than them putting their heads together and having their own conversation.

Both of their gazes only amp up his anxiety. He’s tightly wound.

Luckily, he has this unknown cave to focus on.

The inside of the cave is dark and dry, with bones of prey littering the hard ground, causing gut-rolling _cracks_ to echo in the black space as they tred on the skeletons. Every now and then they pass by a pile of what is likely droppings left by the Terentatek (and Ben is going to have to write that name down at some point), a noxious odor made even more foul by the musty stink of a monster that never learned to properly bathe itself. There are no air vents inside the cave, and the darkness and smell is only intensifying.

“Did the Knights of Ren, uh, specify anything about this text they were looking for?” Finn asks.

“Just that they couldn’t get to it,” Ben replies.

“The Sithspawn must have prevented them?” Jannah says, though her hesitation makes it a question.

Ben glances back, giving her a firm nod. “Lior said he felt they should have tried harder to get it. It seems most likely to me that they encountered the Terentatek and either failed to defeat it, or decided it was not worth battling in order to find the text they sought.” Ben pauses, and looks at his three Jedi. “Be proud of what you’ve done today. You’ve destroyed a bit of violent darkness in the galaxy.”

“This may no longer be called the Screaming Cave,” Rey suggests, and Ben gives her a smile.

“Hopefully.”

Anakin says nothing, and for that, Ben is grateful.

They continue to walk into the darkness.

Eventually, they reach, of all things: a door.

It’s massive, close to the height of the dead Terentatek outside, and looks to be made of a dark stone.

“Obsidian,” Anakin whispers, and Ben nods in agreement.

There are markings all over the door, shapes and letters, clustered together to form words. Ben studies them all, tipping his head back. At his side, Finn steps forward, raising a hand--

Ben snatches his wrist.

“Don’t,” Ben advises. “Not until we know what it wants from us.”

“Can you read it?” Rose wonders.

“Um, parts of it,” Ben says. He’s never spent a lot of time trying to read the ancient language of the Sith, but he’s picked up enough to recognize a few things. “There’s something about…. Blood, and… strength, sacrifice, enter--”

“It wants your blood,” Anakin says.

Everyone looks at him.

“Makes sense,” Finn mutters. “‘Course the evil door wants _blood.”_

“No,” Anakin murmurs. “It wants _Ben’s_ blood.”

“Why?” Jannah asks, a little breathless.

Ben sighs.

“I’m the only one here with the blood of a Sith,” he says.

“But…” Rey stares at Anakin. “You were redeemed! You sacrificed yourself to save Luke, you walk among us as a Force ghost, which only Jedi can--”

“Yeah,” Anakin agrees, though he keeps his eyes on Ben. “Yet the taint of darkness remains. It’s impossible to be fully eradicated, not when it comes to inhabit something as timeless as blood.”

“Your last living blood,” Ben mutters, thinking back to Anakin’s words earlier.

Rey looks at Ben. “But you aren’t a Sith. Won’t that… Won’t it know?”

“Probably,” Ben says. “But the events of the last hour may have been enough to confuse it. Poe, your knife?”

As Poe dives into his pocket for his penknife, Rey frowns, surveying Ben. “What do you mean?”

“Aren’t you curious why the monster suddenly went for _you?”_ Ben asks. “It was very eagerly trying to kill me first, and I’m sure the reason for that was obvious.”

“Because you’re the strongest in the Force,” Rey says.

Ben smiles. “Right. Strongest… and the Lightest. Or, I was. Until…”

Rey waits. 

“I tore one of the monster’s tusks out of its skull,” Ben says, and the cave is suddenly so quiet. “Using Force Rend.”

While Poe and Rose look bewildered, the assembled Jedi understand Ben’s words, and the gravity of them.

“Oh,” Rey whispers. “Oh, Ben.”

He shrugs. “It was necessary.”

“How are you _feeling?”_ Finn demands.

Ben can’t help but give an airy laugh. “I’m not feeling manically homicidal, Finn, if that’s what you’re after.”

“Er, I’m sorry,” Poe interjects, paused in the act of handing Ben his penknife. “What’s the big deal?”

“Force Rend is a very violent Force ability,” Anakin says, and Ben holds his grandfather’s gaze. They are quite close in height, he notices; within an inch of the other. “It allows the user to contort the form of an enemy. It is… It is considered to be a Dark Side power.”

Rose and Poe gawk at Ben.

“Holy beek-monkeys,” Rose says.

Ben takes the penknife from Poe. He rolls back the sleeve of his left arm, and flicks the blade out over his skin.

“First-person accounts by Imperials and Alliance soldiers suggest that Darth Vader was very proficient at Force Rend,” Ben says, one eyebrow raised at Anakin.

Anakin gives him a dark, amused smile. “Must be a talent borne in the blood.”

“We’ll find out,” Ben says.

“Ben,” Rey starts, but he’s already moving.

He slashes a line on his forearm, biting his lip to avoid hissing at the pain. He watches his dark blood spill out over his pale skin, and then he lifts his arm to the wall, and rubs his blood on the black stone.

“Repeat after me,” Anakin whispers behind him. _“Taka zeech--”_

 _“Taka zeech--”_ Ben whispers, speaking in the ancient tongue of the Sith.

_“--ma toka duuwaj.”_

_“--ma toka duuwaj.”_

His blood vanishes _into_ the door as he finishes speaking.

Slowly, the door slides open.

Anakin grins. “Told you I could help you.”

* * *

Rey has to work hard to focus only on the opening door, and not on what Ben has just revealed to her.

Force Rend is a despicable application of the Force; it’s appeared only a couple times in their Jedi texts, but both times the authors have emphasized it is a wicked, cruel power to wield. To know that Ben applied it, more than once, during the battle with the Sithspawn has Rey reeling. It feels out of character; it feels like a price Ben will have to pay.

But if the only price to be paid is him giving up his blood to the Sith Temple door… then at least there’s that. A bit of good, amidst so much darkness. She somehow doubts it will be so easy.

To Rey’s surprise, the room behind the door is lit.

Crackling flames of blue fire light up the space, spewing out of ornate candelabras scattered around the edges of the room. The walls are covered in more of the mysterious Sith language, scratched haphazardly, by a desperate hand. Statues line the room, statues of hooded figures with menacing faces and eyes of amber gems. In the center of the room, laid low, is an altar.

“Rose, Poe, don’t touch anything,” Ben says, standing still as Finn heals the cut on his arm. “Everyone else… Be careful.”

Rey is several steps into the room when she realizes Anakin has not followed. She turns, frowning at him, where he stands just outside the door.

“You’re not coming in?” she asks.

He offers her a wry smile that is so reminiscent of Leia it makes Rey’s chest hurt. “Better not push it.”

Rey nods, and turns back to the room at large.

She is most intrigued by the altar below. It is made of a shinier black stone than the rest of the space; it almost looks to be glittering in the firelight. Jannah has stopped by the altar as well, and is bent, peering intently at it.

“Can you read Sith?” Jannah asks.

Rey shakes her head. “No. It never seemed like a terribly important thing to master.”

“Aha!”

Rey turns around. Finn is crouched next to one wall, a heavy stone on the floor at his feet. Embedded in the wall are opaque vases (Rey is not sure she wishes to know their contents), and a couple texts, bound in beautiful leather.

“Don’t!” Ben exclaims, hurrying over, as Finn’s hand freezes above one of the texts. “Don’t touch it.”

“Is there a curse?” Finn demands, pausing.

Ben shakes his head. “No, I doubt it. I’m just concerned the books are bound in skin. Human skin.”

Finn snatches his hand back like it’s been burned.

“Oh, _ew,”_ Rose breathes. She has her arms wrapped tightly around herself, as if she is trying to make herself as small as possible.

Ben retrieves his scarf from his satchel. He wraps his gloved hand in the scarf, and then carefully tugs a text from the rock shelf. It resists the move, suggesting the text has been sitting there for a very long time. Ben uses his free hand to remove a couple notebooks from his bag, which he gives to Finn, making space. He then wraps both texts up in the scarf, and tucks the package into his satchel.

“We’ll look at them later,” he says. “Once we’ve taken the covers off.”

“And then shot them out of an airlock, I assume,” Finn mutters.

Ben straightens, looking around. “We need to take as many things from this Temple as we can. Without the Terentatek to guard the Temple, it’ll be easier for people to come in here. Not just the Knights of Ren, but regular civilians of Pasaana.”

The Temple would certainly seek to corrupt anyone who stepped inside.

The Jedi spread out, searching the Temple and its hiding places. Jannah, with Rose’s help, takes the mysterious vases off the shelf, storing them in her rucksack, while Poe helps Finn check behind every statue. Ben studies the altar in the middle, his forehead wrinkling in thought, while Rey wanders to the far wall of the Temple. There is something heavy in the air in this space, and she frowns, surveying what appears to be only an empty wall.

 _Show me,_ she thinks, and presses her palm to the wall.

The air seems to shiver, like ripples on a pond.

The next thing Rey knows, she’s looking at a sword.

A real sword, one of metal. It’s absolutely massive, possibly close to the length of one of her legs, the blade a dark, shining metal, not unlike the altar in the Temple. The hilt is made of gold, ornately shaped with thin ridges and cuts, making a spiral shape. In the pommel of the hilt rests a bright red jewel.

Rey realizes a hush has fallen over the Temple, and she turns around.

Everyone is staring at the sword, in expressions ranging from alarm to awe to fear. Outside the door, she can see Anakin, staring at the sword with obvious wariness.

“A sword,” Rose says, unnecessarily.

“A _Sith_ sword,” Ben murmurs. He walks to stand beside Rey, studying the sword with clear revulsion. “Powered by, and empowering, the Dark Side.”

Rey frowns. “Can I take it?”

Ben nods. “Very, very, carefully.”

“Do… Would it be better if you took it?”

Ben gives her a wry smile. “No, I don’t think it would be.”

Rey stares at Ben, narrowing her eyes. “We _will_ be talking about what happened with the Force Rend, exactly, once this is over.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Ben replies, and then more quietly adds: “And I welcome that conversation.”

He studies her, his expression intense and knowing.

Ben is not the only one withholding information. And suddenly, Rey realizes: He remembers.

 _He remembers I saw his death five years ago,_ she thinks. _And now he is ready to hear it._

_Am I?_

She frowns, turning her attention to the problem that is literally at hand. She stretches her arm out, wraps her fingers around the hilt of the sword, and yanks it out of the wall. It’s heavier than she expected, and she staggers, Ben reaching out to stable her with a hand on her shoulder and waist. As she hefts the sword, a tendril of ice seems to wrap around her fingers, a cool touch exacerbated by the screams that echo in her head.

 _“Oh,”_ Rey whispers.

“Rey?” Ben prompts.

“Horrible things,” she whispers, “have happened with this.”

“I’m not surprised,” Ben murmurs, his hand on her waist squeezing her. “Please get it out of here.”

She does as directed, carrying the sword out of the Temple, to the cave outside. Anakin hovers there, frowning, eyes flicking from the sword to her and back.

“Something to say?” Rey asks.

“No,” he says. “Just glad you picked up that sword and not Ben.”

“Why?”

“Sith blood in a Sith Temple is a heady thing,” Anakin replies, and leaves it at that.

“Rey?” Ben calls, and she turns.

His lightsaber is lit, as are Finn and Jannah’s, the three of them standing in the Temple. Poe and Rose have joined Rey outside it, their arms full of the bags carrying Sith relics.

“Want to destroy a Sith Temple?” Finn asks.

Rey grins, depositing the sword on the ground, and unclips her lightsaber from her belt.

* * *

The Sith Temple is torn apart in slashes of blue, green, yellow, and white light.

The Jedi win a small battle in the immortal war against the Sith.

* * *

They leave the smoldering remains of the Temple, walk quickly through the dark cave, and emerge into the blinding sunlight of Pasaana. The day is almost over, yet the sun shows no sign of setting.

Ben pauses beside the corpse of the Terentatek. 

“What will happen to it?” Jannah asks, standing beside him.

“I would say it will return to nature,” Ben murmurs, “By being eaten by the carnivorous scavengers of Pasaana… But this monster was never part of nature in the first place. We need to burn it.”

Luckily, Rose has a miniature welding torch in her rucksack, and this, along with liquid bacta, is enough to set the corpse alight. The six humans and Force ghost stand back and watch as the Terentatek burns in unnatural flames of dark green.

The smell is atrocious.

“Kriff,” Poe mutters. “I need a bath.”

“Babe, we need to get off this planet first,” Finn says, diplomatically.

“Yeah.”

“We can’t go back to the sinking sand,” Jannah says. “In case there are stormtroopers waiting, or worse.”

Rey frowns. “We don’t have a transport back to the Forbidden Valley otherwise, though.”

As the five of them talk, offering suggestions, shooting down ideas, Ben decides it’s time to face the inevitable. He turns, and finds Anakin watching him, waiting patiently.

“Let’s get this over with,” Ben mutters, and walks a bit away from the group, Anakin in his hazy blue light haunting his steps. 

He leads him through the thin crack in the wall of the amphitheater that Rose and Poe had navigated to reach the group at the bottom, climbing upward, to the stone stairs where an audience must have once sat to watch the carnage below. Ben walks along a row, until he can no longer see his friends; he does not wish to have any of them see or hear this conversation.

He turns on the spot, and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Thank you for your help,” Ben says, stiffly. Anakin looks at him. “You were right; we wouldn’t have been able to get into the Temple without you, and your knowledge of the Sith language.”

“Believe it or not,” Anakin says, “But I learned that bit of language _before_ my second life.”

 _“Second life,”_ Ben scoffs. “That’s an incredibly artful turn of phrase to describe your time as Vader.”

“Artful,” Anakin muses. “No one’s ever called my vocabulary that before.”

Ben sighs.

“Have you ever heard of a staff?” he asks. “As a Dark relic, a Sith artifact. Sentient. Exuding a great amount of power and knowledge. Ring a bell?”

Anakin shakes his head, disturbed.

Ben nods, unsurprised.

“Are we done, then?” he asks.

Anakin looks at him, and Ben is struck, again and again, by how _young_ he is here, how he is probably even younger than Ben. Ben forces himself to hold his gaze, looking into Anakin’s pained, somber blue eyes.

Luke’s eyes.

“What’s wrong, Ben?” Anakin asks.

“Quite a few things,” Ben says. “My brother is a Dark Sider, my father is dead, the galaxy is at war--”

“Why don’t you like me?”

Ben stills.

And takes a deep breath.

But it is not enough.

“Why _would_ I like you?” Ben asks, fighting to keep his tone calm, even as his words are anything but. “My mother has spent her entire life trying to clean up your mess. My brother was seduced to the Dark Side by the lure that it was his destiny as your grandson. My uncle doubted his own goodness in the face of your legacy.” Ben holds his gaze. “I understand you are not Vader. But you also _are._ Part of you will always be.”

“I see,” Anakin says, softly. “But for you, here, please know that I am only Anakin Skywalker.”

“And you’ve been very helpful, and I appreciate that.” Ben pauses. “So, you know… Take care. Or whatever it is Jedi do in the Netherworld.”

Ben turns, and has taken three steps away before Anakin speaks again.

“The end approaches, Ben.”

Ben stops, his spine stiffening. Naturally the Force ghost knows the exact words to say to get Ben to talk to him again.

Ben turns back around.

Anakin stands, arms crossed over his chest. His head is cocked to the side, studying Ben like he’s a wild creature, liable to spook at any moment. With his head tilted so, the scar on the right side of his face is incredibly obvious; and so familiar. Bail’s face bears a scar that is eerily similar to it.

“The end of what?” Ben asks.

“The end of everything that matters to you,” Anakin replies.

“You mean my death.”

Anakin blinks. Surprised.

“You really are a true Jedi, aren’t you?” Anakin comments. “You don’t fear death at all.”

“I fear dying,” Ben admits. “I fear the pain of it, the suffering, the agony… But death itself? No. I don't fear it.” He levels his gaze at Anakin. “There are far worse things to fear. Far worse things I’ve already endured.”

“And they’ve made you a better Jedi,” Anakin notes.

“I like to think they’ve made me a better man,” Ben replies. “Anyway; if you came here to offer me a warning that my death is approaching, consider me warned. I already knew as much.”

“You are prepared for your death,” Anakin says. “But are your Jedi?”

That gives Ben pause. He thinks about it.

Jannah will be a Knight within the next year, he expects. She’s progressing rapidly, mastering skills and challenges with aplomb and thoughtfulness. And Finn only continues to improve, his Force signature so strong and vibrant it’s like it was never muted or muffled by the First Order’s efforts. And Rey, who has grown so much since her knighting ceremony almost five years earlier, who goes to High Command meetings in Ben’s place, who has been a brilliant and patient teacher for Jannah, who acts as a perfect fighting partner for Finn… 

“They’ll be fine,” Ben says now. “The Jedi Order will endure without me.”

His chest aches with the thought, the knowledge that they will grow and change and evolve and he won’t get to see it.

He looks at Anakin. “The staff will kill me, won’t it?”

Anakin surveys him.

“I think,” he says, slowly, “that you want it to.”

Ben laughs at that. _“What?_ No. No, I do not. Not even a little. I don’t _want_ to die, not anymore. And that thing… That thing was awful, I don’t--”

“You would prefer death due to its unnatural power than death at the hands of your brother.”

Anakin’s words cut Ben as surely as the knife on his arm did earlier.

He blinks, and remembers his last conversation with a Force ghost, on this very topic.

_“It is a cruel fate,” Obi-Wan murmurs, “To confront your brother. I would not wish it on anyone. I am terribly sorry that this future awaits you, Ben.”_

_“How did you do it?”_

_“At great personal cost,” Obi-Wan says. “By understanding that it needed to be done, that Anakin would unhinge the galaxy in his quest for power. I knew that I was possibly the only person left who could defeat him. I placed my love for the galaxy over my love for Anakin. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.” Obi-Wan’s smile is wry. “All my years of meditation, of following the Jedi Code, and still; I failed to keep my attachment to my apprentice at bay. It nearly ruined me.”_

It is not that Ben has forgotten that a final confrontation between him and Bail is in his future.

It is only that Ben has chosen to avoid thinking too much about it.

“It’s not up to me,” Ben says to Anakin, responding to his statement. “But sure; if it was… I wouldn’t want Bail to have to live with my murder. Just like I don’t want to have to live with his.”

“But you would.”

“I would, if I knew it would end this war.”

“Is that enough?”

Ben hesitates. Softly, he breathes, “It _has_ to be.”

Anakin nods.

“Obi-Wan was as good as a brother to me,” Anakin says. “Though he was sixteen standard years older than me, it often felt like we’d never been apart. And then on a planet of fire and black sand, Obi-Wan tore me apart and left me to die. And in doing so, he turned his own heart to ash.”

On Ahch-To, Obi-Wan Kenobi had said as much to Ben.

“It was a cruel thing,” Ben murmurs. “To make him do that. You know he would’ve done anything else, if there was another choice.”

“There is always a choice,” Anakin says, and Ben blinks, and remembers his own words, something he’s said to Rey and something he’s said as a reminder for himself.

_“Promise me something. Promise me that whatever you do, whatever you become… Promise me that it will always be your choice.”_

Ben is suddenly _furious_ again.

He walks forward, to stand directly in front of Anakin. They are nearly the same height, and Ben sees so much of himself in Anakin’s face; and by extension, then, he sees Bail. 

And Leia.

“She never forgave you,” Ben whispers. “Leia. Your daughter. You broke her mother’s heart. You watched as she was tortured for information. You stood by as her home was annihilated. You were behind the Empire that murdered her parents. You gave the order that nearly froze my father alive. You almost killed her twin for power. _That_ is why I don’t like you. Because of all the horrors and cruelty and violence you inflicted on her.”

“You love your mother very much,” Anakin murmurs. “I understand. I _relate.”_

Ben doesn’t know much about Anakin’s mother; Luke and Leia never knew much, either. They know her name was Shmi, and she was a slave on Tatooine. They know she died a long time ago.

“Yes, I do,” Ben says, voice cold. “And I try to make her _proud.”_

Anakin flinches. Ben feels a twinge of satisfaction that is not becoming of a good Jedi, or a good man.

He feels it nonetheless.

The galaxy doesn’t call him _The Righteous Man_ for nothing.

He walks away, but Anakin’s voice stops him once more.

“The brightest light casts the darkest shadow, Ben.”

Ben stiffens. But he doesn’t turn around.

“I hope,” Anakin continues, “that if I am not forgiven, that at least I am understood. By you. Before the end.”

When Ben does turn around to look at him, Anakin is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Force Rend was classified as a Dark Side power; not the kind of thing the Jedi would teach. I don't know what exactly "Taka zeech ma toka duuwaj" translates as, but it was used in a bit of Old EU media as an incantation to get access to a Sith obelisk. So let's say it means something like "open sesame."
> 
> I don't think Leia was ever able to forgive Anakin, and it tracks to me then that Ben, loyal Ben, has a hard time forgiving Anakin. Especially after witnessing Bail's fall; Ben doesn't understand that choice, of causing so much harm to your family.
> 
> "The brightest light casts the darkest shadow" is a line lifted from the REVENGE OF THE SITH novelization by Matthew Stover.


	10. The Darkstaff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The so-called Darkstaff is a sentient, powerful artifact; but this must be it, Master.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: Empress Teta is a planet, not a person.

They spend most of the flight from Pasaana to Ajan Kloss sleeping.

Rey knows Ben is eager to peruse the texts, desperate to find something in their pages about the mysterious staff, but his revulsion at handling covers of human skin forces him to leave them be. Instead, they place the bags of assorted relics in the main cargo hold of the _Millennium Falcon,_ and don’t touch them for the entire flight.

Ben stays awake just long enough to get the _Falcon_ out of the Ombakond Sector before ceding controls to Rose, who elected to fly back to base in the _Falcon,_ noting the three Jedi were likely to be exhausted from the battle against the Terentatek and a non-Force user should probably pilot for them. None of them disagreed, and Rey watches as Ben clasps Rose’s shoulder in gratitude before shuffling to the crew bunk room, with Rey and Jannah trailing him.

The three of them crawl into their bunks. The last thing Rey sees before her eyes close are Ben’s feet, hanging off the end of the bunk above her.

The long flight passes in similar flashes.

At one point, Rey wakes, starving, and putters to the galley, heating up a can of soup and scarfing it down lukewarm. She almost walks into Jannah, exiting the fresher, her hair a floating mass of curls, and the two of them exchange grunts in greeting.

At another point, Rey wakes, thirsty, and wanders out to the main space of the _Falcon_ to find Ben passed out over the dejarik board, an open notebook at his elbow, a pen dropped on the floor. She can’t resist the urge to brush her hand over his dark hair, and it is a mark of his tiredness that he barely stirs at her touch.

At another point, Rey wakes, disoriented, and meanders to the cockpit, where Rose is seated leisurely, her socked feet up on the control panel, and _knitting._ Rey blinks, watching the flash of needles in her hands above a skein of bright pink hippoglace yarn.

“What are you making?” Rey asks, and Rose jumps about a foot in the air.

“Hi, sunshine,” she replies, smirking at Rey’s dishevelment. “I was thinking it could be a sheath for a tool of some kind, to keep it clean, you know? Not sure which kind of tool yet. Depends on how big I end up making this thing.”

Rey blinks.

She wonders if she’s dreaming.

Instead, she walks into the cockpit, sitting in the co-pilot’s seat next to Rose.

“Will you teach me to knit?” she asks.

“Sure,” Rose says. “My spare needles are back in my bunk on base, though. Raincheck?”

“Yeah. Can I just watch for a bit?”

“As long as you like,” Rose replies.

Rey only counts six loops of Rose’s needles before she falls asleep again.

* * *

Ben opens his eyes.

The ceiling of the _Millennium Falcon,_ its familiar grubby gray, looks down at him. He can see an old water stain from a past leak in the ceiling, an ominous looking crack in the structure, and a dusty cobweb in the corner he isn’t interested in investigating. Ben does not sit up as much as slide off the bunk; he is too tall to be able to sit straight up in the bunk.

He touches down on the floor, glancing behind him. Jannah’s bunk is empty, the ruffled blankets the only evidence she’d been there. He stands still, and breathes, and thinks he can hear voices coming from the direction of the cockpit: Jannah and Rose. He glances at the chronometer on the wall, and takes in the timezone.

He looks down.

Rey is asleep, sprawled in a position that looks incredibly uncomfortable, one leg dangling off the edge of the bunk to the floor, the other rucked up under her. Her mouth is partially open, a bit of drool lingering at the corner of her lip. Her hair shows signs of having once been braided, but has since turned into a shape not unlike a particularly chaotic tumbleweed.

Ben smiles.

He slides to his knees, resting his arms on the edge of the bunk, watching her. Her shirt is thin and sleeveless, and he can see the constellation of freckles on her collarbone that always reminds him of the shape of the Kashyyyk Region.

He reaches forward, and brushes his fingers over the top of her head.

Rey stirs.

“Hi honey,” Ben whispers. 

Rey hiccups on a snore, closing her mouth. She raises her arms, pushing his hand away, and rubs her eyes.

“Kriff,” she mumbles. “I feel like I’ve slept for a hundred years.”

“Just about,” Ben murmurs. “We’re in the galactic north quadrant. Must be nearly there.”

“Why am I so tired?”

“Because you battled a Sithspawn,” Ben replies. “Because you nearly got your leg torn off by said Sithspawn. Because you lost quite a bit of blood, and then destroyed a Sith Temple. Because we then had to hike up a mountain to flag down a passing transport for a ride back to the Forbidden Valley.”

Rey smirks. “That’s right.”

She stretches, her entire body flattening out, muscles tensing. She looks at him as she does this, and he lets his gaze wander, roving from her eyes and down, until he spots her bare calf, and the pink scar there. He can’t stop himself from reaching out, curling his hand around her ankle.

“How’s this feel?” he asks, staring at the scar.

“Fine,” Rey says. “A little warmer than the rest of me. Like a sunburn.”

The scar looks well-healed, like it’s years old, rather than mere days. He bends his head, and kisses the raised flesh, and feels her stiffen.

Ben sighs, laying his cheek on the bunk next to her leg, turning his face to look at her. Rey sits up a little, frowning.

“What’s the matter?” she asks.

_Anakin looks at him with pained, somber blue eyes._

_Luke’s eyes._

_“What’s wrong, Ben?”_

“You’re probably wondering why I was so… dismissive, towards Anakin,” Ben says.

Her surprised expressions, the way she’d exclaimed _“Ben!”_ at his comments.

“‘Dismissive’ isn’t the word I’d use. You were _rude.”_ She smirks. “Which I would normally find _highly_ entertaining, if it weren’t so out of character; if your rudeness weren’t directed to a family member.”

Ben nods in agreement.

“I… don’t have… a lot of patience, for Anakin,” Ben says. “He caused a lot of grief and violence, was by many accounts a hotheaded, temperamental man… And all of this before he became Vader. I’ve never been able to relate to him, or understand him. And my mother especially, she… It’s hard for her to forgive. It’s never come easy for her. And Anakin… He has a lot to ask forgiveness for, from her.”

Rey nods, thoughtful. She sits up all the way, and runs her fingers through his hair.

“But I also…” Ben sighs. “I forget how young he was. He was still an apprentice when the Clone Wars broke out, and even before that, he became an apprentice fresh off a life of slavery on Tatooine. He was much younger than I am when he turned to the Dark Side; younger, I think, than you as well. Seeing him yesterday, seeing his _youth_ and his humor… It was a surprise. And that’s on me. I should be… I should be kinder. To him.”

_“I hope,” Anakin continues, “that if I am not forgiven, that at least I am understood. By you. Before the end.”_

Rey studies him.

“I think,” she says, softly, “that a lot of what you just said about Anakin can also be said for Bail.”

Ben looks up, to meet her eyes. She looks soft; soft eyes, soft smile, soft soul.

“Minus, you know,” Rey adds. “The slavery thing.”

Ben laughs, and Rey grins, and he knows his laugh was her intention.

“Yeah,” Ben says. “Bail and Anakin have always had quite a bit in common. Temperaments, ideals, styles… Luke knew it, too. He used to tell us, when we were children, how Bail reminded him of our grandfather, Anakin Skywalker. We didn’t know Anakin was also Vader.”

Looking back, Ben wonders exactly what Luke meant when he said those things. What parts of Anakin he was seeing in Bail; how this might have affected Bail’s training, his future.

“And I think,” Rey says, “That when it comes to _you,_ and how I might think of you compared to the rest of your family, which, granted, I don’t know _that_ well… I think, more than anything, more than Anakin’s grandson or Vader’s grandson, or Leia’s son… I think you are Han’s son.” She smiles. “And we know Luke thought that as well.”

_“Ben,” Luke says, studying him, frowning in the dark light, the pouring rain. “Remember how to forgive. You must remember this.”_

_Ben blinks._

_“Your ability to forgive is one of your best qualities,” Luke continues. “Remember that.”_

“Because of my capacity for forgiveness,” Ben murmurs.

_“Your father was always so forgiving,” Chewbacca notes. “It bewildered me, more than once. The People of the Trees value honor and loyalty above all else, and someone who betrays those ideals is considered scum. But your father was so quick to forgive, if he thought the person had atoned, if he thought they deserved another chance.”_

_“What are you saying?”_

_“I think your father would forgive Bail. And I think you are your father’s son.”_

Ben closes his eyes.

“Of all my ghosts,” Ben says, “The one I’d most like to see is my father.”

“I know,” Rey whispers. “I’m sorry, Ben.”

Ben shakes his head. “Don’t be. It is what it is.”

He sits up, scooting forward, to wrap Rey’s hands up in both of his, pressing his mouth to her knuckles.

“Thank you for putting up with me,” he says, quietly. “And all my baggage and my melancholy. It’s thankless work.”

“I’m still grateful for it,” Rey murmurs. “It means I’m here with you.”

In the quiet, Ben considers bringing it up.

He considers asking her for the truth, after five years: _What did you see? How do I die?_

He knows she wants to talk to him about Force Rend, and Sith blood. He knows they really should have that conversation.

But in this moment, it is quiet, they understand each other, and they are in love.

So instead, he thinks of what he should say, but will not. Not yet.

_How much time do we have left?_

_Don’t let this war take my goodness from me._

_I am afraid that if I kill my brother I’ll burn my heart to ash with him._

* * *

Rey wrinkles her noses as Beaumont types in a few keys in the computer, orchestrating commands, causing the scanner at his side to switch on, lines of blue analyzing the open cover of the text on the table. In the harsh, artificial light the leather looks even more barren than it had in the Sith Temple.

“Any estimates on where this leather came from?” Beaumont asks, typing furiously. “Corellia, or Tunroth? More exotic?”

“It could easily be from either of those systems,” Finn says, wincing as Rey elbows him in the ribs.

Beaumont frowns, noticing the movement.

Ben sighs.

“What my fellow Jedi is getting at,” he drawls, “is our concern that this leather might be made from human skin.”

Slowly, Beaumont looks up from his computer.

The four Jedi standing in front of him blink back, innocently. 

Ben wiggles his gloved hands. “Didn’t you think it odd that I carried these texts to you wrapped in a scarf?”

“I thought it was just because they were old!” Beaumont exclaims. He looks down at the texts, staring at the leather with clear revulsion. _“Urgh.”_

“Agreed,” Jannah says.

“I don’t know how common a practice it was, for the Sith to bind their stories in human skin,” Ben says, watching as the scanner stops moving and begins to hum, flickering through possible matches in the technical database. “I remember Luke mentioning it once, because I’d assumed he was exaggerating. He assured me he wasn’t. Master Yoda told him about it once.”

“That is… grim,” Beaumont says.

Ben’s smile is dark. “Yes, well. The Sith.”

Rey is desperately hoping the scanner will return with a benign result. Maybe the leather is made from some kind of exotic creature none of them have ever encountered. Maybe it’s artificial leather of some mutant variety. Maybe it’s leather from the hide of a Sithspawn.

The computer _beeps._

Everyone looks at it.

“Oh, for fuck’s--”

“Kriff, Ben, I really didn’t think it was likely--”

“Gods, _whose skin--”_

“That is _nasty--”_

Ben only nods, looking disgusted but not as vocally horrified as the other Jedi.

“Let’s see what we might have lying around that we can bind the texts in,” he says. “Or even just a spare bit of cloth, or… Like, wire--”

“Anything that isn’t human skin,” Finn summarizes, and Ben shrugs a little helplessly.

While Finn and Jannah leave to track down possible covers, Rey steps forward. Beaumont pulls the scanner back, and Ben hands her a pair of goggles and a pocket-sized laser cutter.

“Please don’t cut my fingers off,” he murmurs, as he tugs on his own goggles, and pulls the cover from the text back as far as he can. Rey pulls the goggles over her head and switches the laser on, spilling out neon green light that sends sparks spiraling off the metal tabletop.

“I won’t,” she says. “I quite like you with all your extremities attached.”

Ben laughs, a laugh he quickly smothers as she bends, drawing the laser over the cover. It cuts pretty cleanly through the leather (she forces herself to think of it only as leather, and not _human skin)_ , severing the cover from the text, but leaving a smell that nearly causes her to vomit. 

“Son of a mynock, that’s foul,” Beaumont gasps.

“Breathe through your mouth,” Ben advises. He quickly turns the text around so Rey can attack the cover from the other side.

“I can taste it on my _tongue--”_

“Done,” Rey declares, as the cover falls away from the text. Ben hurriedly shoves it aside, rapidly switching out the first text with the second. They repeat the process, separating the second cover of human skin from its text.

Rey switches the laser cutter off. She and Ben lift the goggles off their eyes.

The smell lingers.

“I want to take a bath in enzobleach,” Rey declares.

“Let’s take a dip in the swamp instead,” Ben suggests, and she snorts. 

He eyes the pile of leather. 

“We should burn this,” he says, softly. “Instead of burying it.”

Rey nods in silent agreement. 

Jannah runs up, carrying a length of ragged purple cloth.

“Commander Sovv gave this to me,” she says. “He’s got a project going on with repurposing donated nerf blankets--”

“Perfect,” Ben says, taking the cloth. “But I’m thinking we should actually wait to bind the books.”

“Why?” Rey asks.

“So we can split them up first,” Ben explains. He carefully divides each text in half, creating four mini texts. “For four Jedi, for easier reading.”

“We’ll need a key of some kind,” Jannah comments. “That’s gotta be Sith, right?”

The jagged, messy writing in the texts definitely looks similar to the symbols and lines of the Sith language, as seen on the Temple walls.

“I’ll put together a few words I think we should look for,” Ben agrees. “Let’s get started.”

* * *

Upon arrival, Chewbacca had informed Ben that Leia was in back-to-back meetings and likely wouldn’t surface to greet her son and the Jedi until close to nightfall. He’d told this to Ben while wearing a discomfitingly shrewd expression under his fur, leaving Ben wondering what Leia might have told him already about him, Bail, the switches, the staff, and his death.

He deeply regrets opening up to Leia about so much. The staff and the switches, she should know about; but he shouldn’t have told her of Rey’s vision.

Especially when he didn’t even actually _know_ it.

Telling her while lacking so many specifics was stupid, and cruel. Unbecoming of a Jedi Master, and a son.

The Jedi settle in their enclave, surrounded by canteens of water, a few bags of moss chips and bofa treats to snack on, and lanterns for best lighting. Rey, Jannah, and Finn create a small circle, laying their chosen texts flat in front of them. While Rey offers a brief introduction to the Sith language for Finn and Jannah, Ben puts his head down, and focuses on writing the Sith words for the kinds of terms he thinks the Jedi should be looking for in the Sith texts.

_Staff: Novas. Cane: Milsura. Rod: Fumpijara. Annihilation: Ardytifaus. Scepter: Upraetor. Ancient: Zarchas. Treasure: Kranjen. Devourer: Derriphan. Hidden: Jen. Jedi: Jidai. Power: Midwan. Spear: Sutta._

_Force essence:_ _Qyâsik esencija._

He’s trying to figure out the best translation for _artifact,_ when a slight shadow falls over him.

He looks up.

Leia stands over him, arms crossed over her chest. She’s dressed in a gray jumpsuit today, her hair coiled in a basic bun, and a stern frown darkening her face.

“Commander-in-Chief,” Ben says, diplomatically. Leia’s scowl deepens.

“Master Jedi,” she drawls. “May I ask what you’re working on?”

“Translating some words into Sith,” Ben says, aware that Rey, Finn, and Jannah have paused in their conversation to look at him and Leia. “Words I think will help us find passages regarding the specific artifact I… saw.”

“I see,” Leia says. “Well, Master Jedi; I wanted to inform you that there will be an emergency High Command meeting in ten minutes in the briefing room. Will you be joining us?”

Ben stares at her. _“Emergency?_ What is it?”

Leia’s lips purse, and her eyes flicker over to the three Jedi hanging on their every word. “We’ll talk about it in the meeting.”

Ben tears out his notebook page, and rises to his feet. He goes to Rey and hands her the page.

“These are my best guesses,” he says. “I’m sure the words aren’t all correct translations. Probably _too_ literal in a few cases. But it should be enough to get you started.”

Rey nods, accepting the page. Finn and Jannah don’t look in to read it; instead they remain looking up, at Ben.

“I’ll be back,” Ben says. “Please, just… Do what you can.”

“Of course,” Finn murmurs, while Jannah manages a small smile. Rey reaches up and squeezes Ben’s wrist in comfort.

Then he turns, and goes to Leia.

The two of them walk back into the base. It’s nearly sunset, which reminds Ben that he’s seeing Leia much earlier than anticipated. She must have canceled several meetings to make time for this High Command one.

“It’s bad news, I take it,” Ben murmurs as they walk.

“It always is,” Leia replies, droll. But while her drollery usually contains a bit of humor, there is none in her face at the moment; only resignation.

“I shouldn’t have said anything to you,” Ben says at once. “Rey could be wrong, her vision could easily be wrong. I’ve seen so many things that never came to pass--”

“And some things that have.”

They pause in unison, just outside the doors to the main room of the base. Inside, the hubbub is loud and echoing, the familiar noises of whirring droids, staticky commands issued over headsets, the incessant hummings of computers receiving data from all over the galaxy. If Ben has learned anything in the last five years, it’s that war can often sound just like chaos.

“I am choosing to believe that when you told me of… the possible future,” Leia says, which Ben thinks is an admirable way of referring to his imminent demise, “That not only did you warn your Commander-in-Chief of a devastating blow to her High Command team and the New Jedi Order… But you also unburned yourself to your mother. I know you’re grown, Ben. Sometimes, I think you were _always_ an adult, even when you were no taller than my waist, and just waiting for the rest of us to catch up to the program. And for all your compassion and sympathy, the goodness that threatens to overwhelm your gentle spirit, I’ve long worried you don’t _share_ enough of yourself. That in being so careful and so emotional, you choose to hide away. So, when you told me… about _that,_ I thought it was a sign that after thirty years, you might be choosing to be more open with me than you ever have before. I appreciate it, Ben.”

“But I’ve burdened _you,”_ Ben whispers.

Leia snorts. “I’d be a piss poor Commander-in-Chief if I refused to let others share their burdens with me.” Her gaze softens. “And I’d be an awful mother if I refused to hear my son’s fears. And I am always trying to be a better mother.”

Ben stares at her. “You’ve always been a good mother.”

“That’s kind of you to say, sweetheart,” Leia says. “But I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I wasn’t home as much as you and Bail needed me to be. I sent you both away to Luke.” She shrugs. “I think all the evidence of my subpar mothering one needs to see is out in the galaxy, trying to destroy its independence and democracy.”

“By that logic, the evidence of your _good_ mothering is now Head of the Jedi Order.”

She laughs. “True, true. When it comes to this galaxy, you and Bail have always been proof of at least _one_ law of physics.”

“How so?”

“Everything has an equal and opposite reaction,” Leia replies.

Ben blinks, and hears Anakin’s voice in his head.

_“The brightest light casts the darkest shadow, Ben.”_

_Bail, my shadow,_ Ben thinks. _Bail, my mirror._

But then he spots Sien and Elya in deep conversation across the room, glancing repeatedly at him and Leia, and he remembers why he had to abandon his research, and why he was doing that research in the first place.

Leia pats him on the arm, and walks away. Without anything else to do or say, he follows her.

The room where High Command meets is more chaotic than usual, and though it wasn’t that long ago when Ben was in it last, he feels like it’s changed entirely. Poe, who had been smooth and humorous on Pasaana, looks wan and stressed. Kaydel’s usually styled hair hangs in a limp braid down her back. Sien’s droopy face looks even more despondent than it typically does, and Elya has dark bags under her eyes. Wynn and Beaumont look appropriately exhausted, as they usually do. Only Cha, Wedge, and Borsk look close to their normal selves.

“Let’s get started,” Leia calls, bypassing the usual roll call that begins these meetings. “The First Order has taken Empress Teta.”

There is a short pause after Leia has said this, where ten High Command members try to process the absolutely insane thing their Commander-in-Chief has just said.

Beaumont is the first to speak: _“What?”_

“You did not mishear me,” Leia says, and her response lacking any sarcastic quip is really the thing that seals for Ben that this is really happening. “We received a distress signal from our friends on Empress Teta two standard hours ago. In the call, they informed us that the First Order was marching on Cinnagar. By the time the call had ended one hour later, the First Order had taken all the factories and corporate sites, including the carbonite mines, and was poised to shut down the planet’s connection to all of its hyperlanes. No ships have been spotted going in or out of the system since then, and we’ve since lost all contact with the people there.”

High Command begins to speak all at once.

All, save for Ben.

He stares down at the blank table before him, and wraps his hands into fists.

“How?” Cha demands. “How could this have happened?”

“That is impossibly quick,” Borsk snaps. “It’s simply unthinkable that the First Order could launch a successful assault of a Core World powerhouse in a single afternoon! That planet is home to almost 400 billion people--”

 _“How?”_ Kaydel repeats.

“The First Order’s never made it as far in the Core as _Duro,”_ Wedge exclaims. “How did they move to Empress Teta so quickly?”

Poe just shakes his head, his shock obvious.

“A full battalion of Star Destroyers and Dreadnoughts made planetfall,” Leia says, and the room goes silent. “So, quite a large number, but nothing that could… could accomplish a planet-wide takeover. Our Intel spies in Cinnagar, already in place for a mission--”

“A party hosted by the Mining Guild,” Elya murmurs. “Celebrating a fiscal year that saw their highest profit margin since the Clone Wars.”

“Yes, that,” Leia says. “Our Intel spies were able to send us their eyewitness accounts before the planet went dark. They reported seeing the usual suspects; stormtroopers, officers, pilots… But General Armitage Hux, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, and the Knights of Ren were there as well.”

This is exceedingly unusual; Hux and Kylo Ren are rarely seen in the same place. Ben assumes this is another instance of him and his twin brother sharing ideas. As Hux is Bail’s second-in-command, a single hit at their location could destabilize the entire First Order; much like how if the four Jedi traveled in the same transport, a single shot could destroy the New Jedi Order.

“Leading the charge?” Wedge asks.

“Oh, yes,” Leia confirms. “And…”

She glances at Ben, and his gut tightens in foreboding.

“General Hux was carrying a staff,” Leia says, and Ben closes his eyes.

_You should never have taken that thing off the asteroid, Bail._

The rest of High Command stares at Leia, confusion dampening their shock and horror.

“This… staff, you spoke of recently?” Sien asks, frowning. “This unknown First Order weapon?”

“It’s not just a staff,” Ben murmurs, and everyone turns to him. He looks at Leia; she gives him a firm nod.

“It is an ancient relic,” Ben says. “We think it was a Sith artifact. It’s imbibed with the power of the Dark Side of the Force. It’s a sentient artifact, able to think and speak for itself. It has one goal: to destroy the galaxy.”

He braces himself for the yelling, the exclamations, the stunned looks and fear.

But instead, he is met with silence.

He looks at the faces of the High Command leaders, these faces that have been fighting one war for at least five years, and some faces that have been fighting wars for much longer than that. Faces that have seen so much of the galaxy, of death, and pain, and grief. Faces that can only stare at him now, seemingly lost for words.

“I don’t know much just yet about it,” Ben says. “But it’s real, and it’s powerful, and it is a great threat.”

He waits. The High Command leaders exchange looks with one another, likely considering their next line of questioning. Likely wondering where to start.

“Why Empress Teta?” Poe asks, and Ben figures this makes sense, as Poe has had more time than anyone else to come to terms with the idea of a sentient, powerful staff. And it’s a good question. “Why that planet? It’s got credits, for sure, and the mines… But it isn’t the most valuable Core Worlds planet.”

“They probably wanted to see how long a conquest would take,” Ben murmurs. “A timeframe, and how many ships they’d need, and other resources. This was a test.”

“A gamble,” Borsk scoffs.

Ben shakes his head. “Not quite. They knew the staff was powerful, they knew what they had. If they’d attempted a coup on Coruscant, they’d get the same result. It _might_ take longer, but the end would be the same. They’d win the planet.”

“The staff,” Leia says, saying the word like it’s an epithet, “was emitting a… purple smoke. Whoever the smoke touched was… strengthened. To a seemingly supernatural level of ability, based on… On the reports we received. Additionally… It looks like the First Order has finally unveiled that secret military project we were keeping an eye on. Poe?”

Poe sighs, but nods. He hits a button on his datapad, and a holographic image fills the room. It is, Ben realizes, the same odd droid he saw in his first switch with Bail; the droid that served dinner, and told him of the meeting with the Hutts. The droid that moved like a human, more so than any droid Ben had seen.

“The First Order has halted work on their stormtrooper program,” Poe says. “We’d tracked an extreme downturn in… in reports of missing or stolen children. It looks like now the First Order has moved to a droid military, but these droids are unlike any we’ve seen. Highly technologically advanced, able to think for themselves. They are built in the shape of humans, with the same mental capacity and agility, but made completely of metal.”

“A supernaturally powerful droid army,” Wedge whispers. “Maker help us.”

Leia surveys her Commanders. 

“All of this to say,” she says, her voice clear and sure, “that the time to fight is _now,_ more than ever before. We have to move before the First Order can execute a full stranglehold on the Core Worlds; because as soon as that happens, it’s over. There is no coming back from that; not for us, and not for the galaxy. I don’t want to say that our next battle will be our last stand… But we should think of it as that.”

Ben glances around the room.

While the Commanders are clearly still experiencing shock, there is an undeniable current of determination. They are ready for this. They have _been_ ready for this.

“Please block out your schedules for the remainder of the day for strategy development,” Leia continues. “And recall any of your soldiers and operatives in the field, and ask them to return to their nearest Resistance base. As soon as we have a plan of attack, we will be executing it. There is no time to waste.” She studies them, taking care to hold the gaze of each Commander. Ben is last.

“The end of the war,” Leia murmurs, eyes locked on his, “is near.”

And he knows what she means by that, when she says it to him.

_It is time for you to confront your brother._

Only one of them will walk away from that meeting.

For the galaxy, for the Resistance, for the future of the Jedi, for Finn and Jannah, for all his friends, for Leia, for Rey: He dearly hopes it will be him.

But for himself, and his mental health, and his future happiness: he wants it to be Bail.

_“Obi-Wan was as good as a brother to me,” Anakin says. “Though he was sixteen standard years older than me, it often felt like we’d never been apart. And then on a planet of fire and black sand, Obi-Wan tore me apart and left me to die. And in doing so, he turned his own heart to ash.”_

A sudden pounding on the door makes them all snap out of their thoughts. Kaydel opens the door.

Rey stands there, fist still raised. Her brown eyes are very wide, and they lock on Ben.

“Ben,” she breathes. “Ben, we have something.”

* * *

Rey sprints through the base, Ben hot on her heels. As soon as she’d finished speaking, Ben was at her side, and the two of them had left the High Command meeting room without further comment. They race through the base now, dodging soldiers, droids, and infrastructure.

“It was Finn, actually,” Rey yells over the hubbub. “Translating his part of a text. He came across this phrase, and it was on your list… _jen’novas.”_

“Darkstaff,” Ben translates, and Rey nods.

“Right,” Rey says. “We haven’t translated much, but I knew you’d want to be here for it--”

They reach the enclave. Finn and Jannah only briefly glance up at Rey and Ben when they arrive, quickly returning to their work. Finn is in a crouch, as if anticipating a need to switch positions rapidly. Jannah is holding two texts open, referring to both.

“Talk to me,” Ben says, dropping to his knees next to Finn.

“So far, nothing we didn’t know,” Jannah says. “The so-called Darkstaff is a sentient, powerful artifact; but this must be it, Master.”

Finn immediately hands Ben a few pages.

“The phrase appears on three pages so far,” Finn explains. _“Jen’novas._ It might appear again later in the text, but I thought we should focus on where it seems to be most concentrated--”

“Yes, agreed,” Ben says, eyes rapidly searching the page. “‘Created by the Sith’... ‘unpredictable’... ‘smoke’... _Qyâsik esencija…_ Yes, this is _it.”_

Rey accepts the page thrust to her by Finn. Ben’s list of words has been placed in the center of their little circle, along with his old notes on translating Sith. The four of them put their heads together, and begin to read and translate.

“It can…” Jannah frowns. “Own? The minds of people?”

“Mind control?” Finn asks.

Ben nods. “It wouldn’t surprise me. It seemed to take control of Hansa when he picked it up.”

“There’s something here about Sith… battlers?” Rey frowns, looking quickly between the new pages and Ben’s translations.

“It told Hansa it would give him the power of the Sith battlelords of old,” Ben says. “Sith that were mentally connected to their troops via the Force.”

Finn runs his finger down a page, tapping a phrase. “What’s a Force Storm? Ben?”

Ben stares.

“Um…” He pauses, seemingly at a loss for words. “It’s an extremely powerful Force ability. The Jedi characterized it as being of the Dark Side, and banned all its usage. A Force Storm can create a hyperspace wormhole. They can… can displace objects across massive distances, and… destroy worlds.”

“Oh,” Finn mumbles. “No big deal.”

“That’s so _dangerous,”_ Jannah breathes, aghast. “That kind of power could easily spin out of control--”

“Yes, hence why the Jedi banned its usage,” Ben says.

Rey is only half-listening to the conversation. She is more focused on deciphering her page, her eyes flicking over words, searching for what she is really looking for: how to destroy the Darkstaff.

Until two words catch her eye:

_Amzi zvelgti._

“Ben,” Rey says, staring at the phrase. “Ben, what does _zvelgti_ mean?”

Ben frowns, leaning over her shoulder to look at the page. “Definitely a verb… What word precedes it?”

 _“Amzi,”_ Rey says, and it is a word she knows. _“Time.”_

Jannah’s forehead tightens in concentration. _“Zvelgti_ is like… _moving?_ Er, _changing?”_

“Travel,” Ben murmurs. _“Amzi zvelgti._ Time travel.”

Rey stares at Ben’s lowered head, waiting. Slowly, he looks up to meet her eyes.

“Time travel _is_ real,” Rey whispers.

_“You weren’t a child,” Rey interjects. “You were an adult, as I’ve known you.”_

_Ben frowns. “That makes even less sense. How could I have been there?”_

_“I don’t know,” Rey admits. “The Force… took you there?”_

_He looks skeptical, a frown marring his mouth. “Not… likely? Or possible, really. There’s no such thing as time travel.”_

_“As far as we know.”_

Rey barely feels Finn peel the page out of her suddenly numb fingers. She is so focused on processing this revelation, and where it fits into her recent vision in the Temple on Lothal, and the words she has carried in her mind forever.

“When it destroys something, it can create a… something I can’t read,” Finn scowls, while Jannah hurries to come up with a translation. “It can create a _something_ , and that’ll cause… something else to travel in time. Sorry, that’s all I can come up with on the spot like this.”

“That’s good, Finn,” Ben murmurs, but keeps his eyes on Rey.

 _This is how you visited me as a child,_ Rey thinks, something ringing in her ears. _The Darkstaff sent you back. You really were on Jakku with me._

_Why didn’t you stay?_

Judging by Ben’s wide eyes, she thinks he’s following the same train of thought as her. He is the first to look away.

“Now, what does it say about Force essences?” Ben prompts. _“_ _Qyâsik esencija.”_

“It… _eats_ them,” Finn says, frowning. “To strengthen itself.”

The four of them look at each other, taking this revelation in. Rey feels horror racing in her veins. She thinks of the way Ben screamed on Yavin IV, how he trembled like he was being tortured, how he wept into the grass. The Darkstaff must have been trying to eat him alive.

Ben pulls himself together first.

“Okay, now that we know _what_ it is,” he says, “How do we destroy it? Let’s look for… uh, _prazutis_ or _ardyti_ . Hell, even _silpnuma._ Weakness. Any of those words or similar varieties.”

The four of them hurriedly bend over the pages, eyes skimming, hunting out familiar consonants and vowels. Rey feels like her eyes are blurring at the speed of her reading.

“Got it!” Jannah calls, and is nearly trampled by Ben, Finn, and Rey’s forms as they converge on her. _“Prazutis._ And then… this.”

Rey frowns. 

_Tave vora._

“Ben?” Finn prompts.

“Um, well, _tave_ is typically just a definite article,” he says, running a hand through his hair thoughtfully. _“Vora…_ I’m not familiar with that word. But I do know _that_ word.”

He points to a word a sentence past it: _Irus._

“Light,” Ben says.

“It can be destroyed by light?” Finn summarizes.

“And I think that by _light_ it means…” Ben sighs. “The Sith, the _ancient_ Sith, the Sith before they were even called that; they called their enemies _massassi iv irus._ Warriors of light.”

He looks at them.

“That’s the Jedi,” he says. “The Warriors of Light. That is the Jedi, to the Sith. The Darkstaff’s destroyer… It’s _us.”_

Rey thinks she shouldn’t be surprised. It tracks that an ancient weapon created by the Sith would consider the Jedi to be its biggest threat.

But it is one thing to hear they are its threat, and a whole other thing to--

“But… _how?”_ Finn asks. “How are we a threat? How do we defeat it, Master?”

Finn rarely calls Ben _Master._ He first met Ben when Ben was an anonymous cargo hauler, and the two of them aimed to work together, ferrying shipments across the galaxy while evading the First Order. Before becoming Master and Apprentice, they were friends. It has always been a little strange for Finn to call Ben _Master,_ just as it’s strange for Rey.

Finn doing it now; it means he seeks guidance. And assurance.

Ben takes the time to study each of his Jedi in turn. Jannah, who has only been an apprentice for a year; Finn, a knight of three years; and Rey, a knight of five years. She wonders what he sees when he looks at them. She thinks of what she sees.

She thinks the four of them have an excellent chance of developing a full-fledged Jedi Order. With a school and a Temple, with peace work done on behalf of a burgeoning Republic, with missions to the Outer Rim to help improve the lives of others. Given time, they can make a difference. They can make a mark.

She never once thought to consider what would happen if a previously unknown ancient, powerful, devastating artifact was unearthed.

Ben looks at them, and he’s never lied to them, and he does not lie to them now.

“I don’t know,” he says.

For the first time, Rey wishes he would lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Darkstaff has its origins in Old EU roleplaying games in the early 2000s. It's popped up in a few contexts since then; much like the Darkstaff itself does. I am taking some liberties with its presentation and powers, but largely remaining as true to "canon" as I can.
> 
> Sith Language word translations plucked from various internet language translators. I am certain it is not legit.


	11. Shatterpoint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And put a blaster to my head, and the second I try to attack her, shoot me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: non-lethal strangulation :(

“I mean, it makes sense, right?” Rose asks, gesturing significantly with her glass, dangerously close to causing dark red drops of wine to spill out on the tabletop. Jannah, sitting beside her, automatically leans away from the potential spray. If Rey were in a more playful mood, she’d laugh. “Light versus Dark… That’s very much a _Force_ thing, no?”

“It is,” Ben agrees, not looking up from the frying pan sizzling on the stove in front of him. As Rey watches, he carefully turns a piece of chicken over, the raw meat settling loudly in the crackling aola oil that has drenched the pan. The delicious smell wafts through the air to Rey, who is sitting a safe distance away on the counter, watching Ben cook.

She likes to watch Ben cook, as it is two of her favorite things in one place: Ben and food. And the majority of the time, she gets to eat whatever it is Ben is cooking. Tonight is no exception; Ben had decided he needed something mindless to do while he worked through the revelation of the Darkstaff, and had elected to cook Fried Endorian chicken for dinner, a recipe Han and Leia picked up from the ewoks after their wedding. He’s doing so in a small kitchen nook, the same space where Rey had baked the Naboo Cream Cake for his thirtieth birthday.

That had been just over a week and a half ago, though it feels like it’s been years since that day. Far too much has happened.

Rey swings her legs, taking care to avoid hitting the ruddy cabinets with her boots. At the table, Rose and Jannah are drinking wine and snacking on dried Jogan fruit; even though Ben had assured her she could take the night off, Jannah is still working on translating the new Sith texts, copying ideas and notes down in her notebook for Ben to look over later. 

Finn, meanwhile, has drifted away to speak with the two former stormtroopers who defected from the First Order while he was off-base. Rey thinks Jannah would normally have gone with him to meet their new recruits, but it is loyalty to Rey and Ben that keeps her with them instead. Or she’s just really interested in the Fried Endorian chicken.

Rose fiddles with a spare bit of wire wrapped around her wrist. “So… What makes this, uh… Darkstaff, different?”

“Different?” Rey prompts, frowning.

“Yeah, I mean… You guys have fought Dark stuff before,” Rose says. “Like that monster on Pasaana.”

“The Terentatek was comparably weak, next to the power of the Darkstaff,” Ben explains, glancing at Rose at last. His shoulders and spine are stiff, and Rey resists the urge to reach forward and run her palm down his back. “Think of it like… like a Star Destroyer next to the Death Star.”

“Interesting analogy,” Jannah mutters.

“But not an incorrect one,” Ben says. “Rey, pass me the seasoning, please.”

She does so, grabbing the small container behind her, and passing it to Ben. His hand is cold under hers. He avoids her eyes.

 _We have to talk,_ she thinks, a little desperately.

They have so many things to talk about. Ben’s use of Force Rend on Pasaana, and the Sith sword Rey pulled from the Temple Wall; and Rey’s Force vision from five years ago, of Ben’s death, and how it might factor in the recent revelation that the Darkstaff can compel time travel.

Rey looks at Ben, his downcast eyes, dark eyelashes, the hint of stubble running along his jaw, and an ominous feeling settles in her gut.

The feeling that they are running out of time.

She swallows. It takes all her focus to not slam her heels into the cabinet under her, to scream her frustrations.

Rose and Jannah are chattering away at the table, delving further into Ben’s Star Destroyer vs Death Star analogy (and it isn’t a bad one, it’ll conceptualize the Darkstaff’s power for a lot of people). Rey slides off the counter, and goes to Ben’s side.

“Ben,” she says. She nudges aside an empty pot on the counter, and leans her hip against the stone.

“Careful, don’t get sprayed by the oil,” he says, as the cooking oil in the frying pan sizzles.

“I won’t.”

“Give me like five minutes, and it’ll be done--”

She puts her hand on his arm. “No rush. I just… I would like to stand here.”

She feels his arm relax, ever so subtly, under her palm. A decrease in the tension that has turned his muscles cold like steel. Ben breathes in through his nose, and closes his eyes.

“Rey,” Ben says, softly, and he sets the cooking tongs on the counter. “Rey, I--”

At first, Rey thinks she’s fallen into an old nightmare.

At first, Rey can only think, _I don’t understand._

Because the first thing she knows after those two thoughts is that she’s in the air, her back slammed against the rock wall next to the stove, and Ben’s hands are wrapped tightly around her throat.

* * *

In a world of smoke and ash, Ben gasps, and drops the man he’s holding by the throat. The man falls, retching, landing hard on a ground covered in dead grass, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Ben stumbles back.

He looks to be in a dead forest, the trees reduced to black sticks of wood, angling out of the ground in various directions. The ground under him is littered with tufts of dead yellow grass, and ash has fallen everywhere, giving it the appearance of snowfall. But there are bodies, bodies littering the ground, bodies dressed in thin leather armor and bodies dressed in normal, unarmored clothes.

Ben stares in horror, fleetingly distracted by the lock of dark hair that obscures his vision. He shoves it out of his eyes.

 _Bail,_ Ben thinks. _Bail, what are you doing?_

A tall warrior in a leather chestplate rushes to Ben, wielding a steel pike, screaming a war cry. He swings the pike, and it is so simple for Ben to parry it away with a single flick of the shimmering red lightsaber in his hand.

“Stop,” Ben snaps. “Stand down--”

But either the warrior cannot understand him, or doesn’t care; he yells, and attacks again. Ben instantly moves on the defensive, catching and deflecting the man’s furious strikes. It is obvious the man is fighting single mindedly, obvious he is attacking with a brute and manic rage, and it is similarly obvious he cannot win this fight.

“Please,” Ben hisses. “Stop--”

The warrior yells something in a foreign tongue Ben doesn’t understand. Ben steps forward with a disarming slash, forcing the pike out of the warrior’s hands. The warrior watches his pike fly away, and he only has time to raise his fists before Ben sets his palm on the warrior’s head.

“Sleep,” Ben whispers, and the warrior drops, landing in the ash.

Ben breathes, and stares down at him.

And then he feels the Force shift, and he turns, in time to catch the blow of the next warrior, attacking him with the same intensity as his comrade.

* * *

If it takes Rey a moment to grapple with the new situation, it takes Rose and Jannah at least twice that.

Rey can’t see them, but she hears Rose’s exclamation of _“what the--”_ coupled with Jannah’s shocked, _“Ben!”_

Rey gasps, her hands automatically clawing for the hands wrapped tightly around her throat. Her feet are not touching the floor, as she’s been shoved up against the wall, and it is only due to the stone at her back and the hands around her neck that she’s vertical at all. She sinks her nails into the flesh of Ben’s skin, and hears him hiss, but he doesn’t let go. Her eyes flick up, to meet his eyes.

She knew it wouldn’t be Ben, knew Ben would never attack her in a situation that is not a teaching moment, and never anywhere _near_ this violently. And sure enough, the person looking at her from those familiar brown eyes is Bail, but it’s Bail like she’s never seen before. It’s Bail with no familiarity, no sense of clarity, no understanding. And furthermore: there is an echo of dark purple bleeding the iris of his eyes.

Rey tries to say his name, but his hands are crushing her larynx, and she can’t make a sound.

She pulls her leg up, and her boot must brush Bail’s thigh, because she feels her legs pressed back against the wall, shoved by the Force. Rey growls, squeezing her eyes shut, but Bail’s grip on the Force is as sure as the literal stranglehold he has on her. 

She is immobilized, trapped, and losing oxygen fast.

* * *

Ben is forced to accept that there is no reasoning with his attackers, and he doesn’t really blame them for their lack of interest in defusing the situation. He is certainly an invader in their home, their world, and he’s sure that whatever reason Bail is here, it isn’t a good one.

He tries to limit the amount of damage he inflicts, but the warriors are quite good, and he causes more harm than he’d like to. He relies on the Force, calling it around him, helping him to send his attackers into unconsciousness or forcing them to feel nausea so strongly they drop to the ground listlessly. Anything to avoid maiming or killing.

But he can’t avoid it entirely.

He watches his blade of neon, spazzing red spear from the chest of a warrior, and sighs with the loss.

The warrior slides off Bail’s sword, landing in the thick ash, and Ben pants.

He’s alone, surrounded by bodies and debris, fallen dead trees, and air thick with smoke and ash. Ahead of him, he sees pillars of smoke, and can hear bone-chilling screams.

He charges forward.

Perhaps, he can find out why Bail is here, _where_ here is, and what’s happening.

Perhaps, he can save some lives.

* * *

Jannah is, naturally, the first to get past her shock and understand what’s happening.

“Kylo Ren,” Jannah gasps, and Rey hears the sound of her chair sliding back on the floor. “Rose, it’s Kylo Ren!”

“Oh _gods,”_ Rose cries, voice carrying.

Rey hears a familiar _hiss_ sound, the noise of Jannah’s energy bow powering up. 

“Kylo Ren!” Jannah shouts, menacingly. “Drop her, or I’ll shoot.”

“Jannah,” Rose gasps.

Rey chokes, still trying to unclasp Bail’s hands from her throat, still trying to fight the Force hold he’s got that’s preventing her from kicking him.

 _Shoot,_ she thinks, _Jannah, shoot!_

Bail abruptly relinquishes his right hand from her throat, leaving Rey to grapple with just his left hand. She does not get much of a reprieve, however, for Bail jerks his arm out, and Rey hears Jannah cry out, followed by an ominous _thunk_ against the far stone wall.

“Jannah!” Rose shrieks. “Jannah, are you okay--”

Bail returns his hand to Rey’s throat.

Black spots are gathering in Rey’s vision.

* * *

It is a village that is burning, a village that has been set on fire. Ben races through the dirt streets, listening to the screams and wails of the villagers, people being burned alive, people crying at the losses that have surrounded them on all sides.

Ben smashes in doors, carving out holes in buildings with the red lightsaber. No one seems to understand Basic, so he hopes the sight of an escape route will be enough to get people out of their homes.

He tosses aside the hair that’s fallen into his eyes again, when he spots a figure draped in black robes, wielding a red lightsaber with an unusually long handle.

_Vesper._

Ben still remembers when the blade of Vesper’s sword was a beautiful, mossy green.

He runs to her.

She is clearly not expecting his attack, and only manages to emit a small yelp of surprise before Ben has yanked her into a side alley with him. With the stench of smoke, burning flesh, and normal trash from the bins in the alley around them, Ben shoves Vesper’s hood back until he’s looking at her face. There is a singe mark on her cheek, and her blonde hair is shorter than he’s ever seen it, barely brushing her chin. She blinks at him with wide green eyes hazed with purple.

 _Purple,_ Ben thinks. The exact same shade as the light on the Darkstaff.

 _“Light Sider,”_ Vesper snarls.

She growls and strikes out, hitting him across the face with her fist. Ben gasps, more surprised by the hit than actually harmed by it, and dodges her next blow. She ignites her lightsaber, and he slams her wrist against the wall behind her, forcing her to drop it. The two of them grapple in the alley, kicking and shoving, Vesper’s teeth grazing the skin of Ben’s neck, and Ben thinks, wildly, of childhood when they would fight like this just for the fun of it, usually involving mud or food or the help of their fellow students.

 _This war,_ Ben thinks, _has taken so much of us._

“Vesper!” Ben yells, and he watches as she blinks, a little bit of green returning to her eyes. Calling her by her true name seems to have woken her up a bit. _“Vesper Tille!”_

He curls his hands around her upper arms, stilling her. He rubs his thumbs in circles over her skin, a soothing gesture.

“Your name is Vesper Tille,” Ben says, speaking hurriedly. “You’re twenty-eight years old. You were born on Eriadu, in the city of Phelar. When you were sixteen years old, we drank a whole case of Regellian draught by ourselves, climbed a twenty-foot tall Akonije tree, and failed to use Force jump properly to get back down; instead, we nearly broke our necks. When you were seventeen years old, you told me I had cute dimples, and laughed when I blushed. Your favorite color is purple, and--”

She is much quicker on the uptake this time, than she was on the asteroid.

“Ben,” she gasps, and her eyes return to their normal green.

“Hello, Vesper,” Ben pants. “Can you tell me what the _hell_ is happening here?”

“How long have you been here?”

“Ten minutes, maybe,” Ben says. “Long enough to see that this is a fucking _massacre._ What’s the point of this? Where are we?”

“Mustafar,” Vesper says.

Ben pauses. “Why?”

“The Castle here,” Vesper says. “Kylo and I, we… We’ve been sent here to search the Castle. For any artifacts.”

 _“Who?_ Who sent you?”

But Ben thinks he already knows.

Vesper confirms it.

“The Darkstaff,” she whispers. Ben fights the urge to slam his own head against the brick wall in front of him.

“Kriffing…” he pulls himself together. “Whose idea was it? To find the Darkstaff, _to use_ the Darkstaff?”

“Kylo’s, of course,” Vesper replies.

_Bail, you fucking idiot._

“I guess my brother’s even stupider than I thought,” Ben snarls. “Not only did he unearth a relic that should never have been pulled out of the dark, but he brought you with him on a pointless mission.”

Vesper frowns. “How do you mean?”

“Luke already combed the Castle for relics,” Ben snaps. “A long time ago, long before he ever started training us. The Castle on Mustafar was a known dwelling for Darth Vader, his semi-permanent residence. Luke destroyed everything he found inside. He told Bail and me about it.”

Vesper’s brow furrows. “No… No that can’t be right.”

“Why?”

“Because coming to the Castle on Mustafar was Kylo’s idea.”

Ben stills, confused.

 _Why would Bail come here,_ he wonders, _when he knows there isn’t anything here to be found for the Darkstaff?_

* * *

Rey is beginning to understand that she’s in deep trouble.

She can barely hear anything, can barely make out the sounds of Rose and Jannah’s voices, her ears instead buzzing with something like static. She can no longer get her legs to move, and her hands aren’t even scratching at Bail’s hands, her fingers only tapping them, like a thin caress. Black spots are emerging on the corners of her vision, and her chest aches, tremors running through her with every panted breath.

She’s beginning to realize that Bail could kill her.

He could strangle her to death in this kitchen, in the main base of the Resistance.

It is a grim, unspeakably tragic death.

So she tries again.

She tries to say his name, but it comes out only as a wisp of noise, like the shadow version of the sound of his name. Her throat is on fire, her vocal cords crushed.

Rey squeezes her eyes shut, distantly feeling the tears sliding down her face.

Bail suddenly jerks against her, choking out a low whine of pain, and Rey forces her eyes to open. She sees he’s staggered, has dropped one of his hands from her throat to press his hand to his left side. Through Ben’s light shirt, she sees splatters of red; he’s bleeding.

A light tendril of air seeps into Rey’s asphyxiated lungs, and she gasps.

Bail looks at her.

“Bail,” Rey croaks, but no sound comes out; just her mouth, forming the shape of his name.

To her amazement, the purple haze in his eyes seems to abate. His eyebrows draw together, confusion gathering there. She watches as he glances down, taking in their positions, Rey slammed against the wall and dangling there, his hand on her throat, his grip on the Force keeping her pinned. Though she cannot hear anything clearly, his mouth seems to form the shape of her name.

This is the last thing she sees of him, before a pot comes from out of nowhere, and slams into the back of his head. Bail drops, and Rey falls with him, the two of them collapsing onto the rough stone floor.

“Rey!” Rose gasps, and Rey realizes it was Rose who slammed a pot against Bail’s head. Behind Rose, she sees Jannah, bleeding from her temple, but pointing her energy bow at Bail’s back. “Rey, are you okay?”

Distantly, Rey realizes she is sobbing.

She can’t speak.

“Go get help,” Jannah says, and Rose gets to her feet, leaping smoothly over Bail’s prone form. She tears the kitchen door open and emerges into the hall, yelling for a medic.

Rey leans against the wall, panting. It hurts to breathe.

“Ssh,” Jannah croons. She’s unable to comfort Rey, electing instead to stand over her, weapon trained on Bail. Blood is oozing from his side, a wound from a shot from an energy bow. “Slow your breathing, Rey. You’ll get light-headed otherwise, and--”

Jannah is not able to share her warning before Rey succumbs to it.

She passes out.

* * *

“Well, there won’t be anything here,” Ben says, choosing to not linger on his brother’s cryptic logic. “So I’d suggest you halt your assault on this village, and _leave._ You’ve already done more than enough harm.”

“Look, it’s… It’s the Darkstaff, Ben!” Vesper yells. “We didn’t have a choice. It told us to… to destroy, to annihilate--”

“Of course it did! Look around you, Vesper!” Ben shouts back, gesturing to the mouth of the alley, the fire and the smoke. “This is what it wants! Destruction and death and misery. Is that what _Kylo Ren_ wants? Is that what _you_ want, Vesper?”

Tears pool in her green eyes.

“I…” She stutters. “I don’t… Not like this…”

“There’s no other way with the Darkstaff,” Ben snaps. “It’s absolute.”

“It controls us,” Vesper whispers. “It got into our heads, and we didn’t even touch it--”

Ben frowns. “What do you mean, you didn’t even touch it?”

“Kylo and I haven’t touched it. I won’t, I _won’t,_ I can _feel_ its power, and it is dreadful and cruel and unnatural--”

“But why hasn’t Kylo?” Ben asks, and in his confusion he uses his brother’s chosen name rather than the real name Ben prefers to call him by. “This whole thing was his idea--”

“He didn’t want the Darkstaff for _this,”_ Vesper snaps. “Kriff, Ben, don’t be stupid.”

Ben shakes his head. “What do you mean?”

“This is so obviously not Kylo Ren’s style,” Vesper hisses. “Why would he murder one master just to gain another? One voice in his head for another?”

Ben takes a step back.

“You know,” he breathes.

When Kylo Ren announced Snoke’s death, he’d claimed that Snoke had been murdered by enemies of the First Order. As far as Ben has known, this lie has been held as truth by the First Order.

“Of course I know,” Vesper spits. “We _all_ know. The Knights of Ren. We’d never have accepted the lie, no one who pays _attention_ should have accepted it. Hux doesn’t have any proof but he suspects it.”

Ben stares.

“But then…” Ben tries to recall everything Vesper has said. “But then why did Bail want the Darkstaff? If he wasn’t interested in destruction and annihilation, why did he _want it?”_

Ben thinks about the abilities the Darkstaff has, that he knows about.

The ability to drain Force essences out of people. The ability of mind control. The ability to create a Force Storm, to create wormholes and destroy planets. The ability to turn Force users into Sith battlelords.

The ability to, somehow, allow for time travel.

Ben doesn’t know how, but as soon as he thinks it, he knows it to be true.

“Time travel,” he says. “Bail wants the staff so he can travel in time.”

“Yes,” Vesper says, clearly surprised by Ben’s quick understanding.

“To when? When does he want to go?”

It is far less readily obvious to Ben what time Bail would like to visit. Perhaps he’d like to travel back to the time of Darth Vader, and recruit their grandfather for his work; or to the Emperor, and seek his counsel on building an Empire. Perhaps he’d like to retrieve a Death Star or two.

Or perhaps he’d like to move forward in time, to a galaxy he rules, without needing to fight the war to get there.

Without needing to kill his brother to get there.

“I don’t know,” Vesper admits. “He hasn’t said.”

Ben looks at her.

“The Darkstaff has sped up the timeline of this war,” he says. “But you know that.”

She doesn’t say anything.

Ben sighs. “The next time I see you, it will be on a battlefield. I hope… I hope that on that day, you will fight with no regrets. I hope everything you’ve done to get yourself to this moment has been worth it.”

“I could say the same for you,” Vesper hisses.

“Oh, I am filled with regrets,” Ben says. “You are just one of them, my friend.”

Vesper, Lior, Hansa, Saffron.

Bail.

The five children Ben could not save.

“Through victory, my chains are broken,” Vesper whispers.

One of the final lines of the Code of the Sith.

“The strong will destroy the weak,” she says. “Peace is a lie.”

“A lie is to live believing you have no regrets,” Ben says. “And peace is always an option, Vesper.”

He stretches a hand out.

Vesper flinches.

With Bail’s gloved fingers, Ben touches her cheek.

“There is no pain,” he whispers, and he thinks of Vesper, Vesper with her long blonde braid, when she’d laugh under the sun of Devaron, when she’d wade in the river and splash him with the water there, when they were young and wild and happy. “There is grace.”

She stares at him.

Ben smiles.

“I’ll see you on the other side, Vesper,” he says, and goes to walk away.

Her voice stops him: “Ben?”

He turns around.

She’s still leaning against the stonewall of the alley, staring at him. Her eyes are shuttered, emotionless, a far distant cry from the teenage girl who used to tease Ben in the Temple on Devaron.

But he knows he is also a far distant cry from the boy who’d blush at her laughter.

“I almost forgot,” she says, and stops.

He frowns. “What did you--”

* * *

Everything goes black.

* * *

Ben blinks.

Initially, he thinks something terribly wrong has occurred, that rather than return to his own body, he’s been shuttled somewhere else in space. Going by the sheer _darkness_ in front of his eyes, he does not think this is an outlandish belief. But he does not feel cold, does not feel like he’s lacking oxygen. The air in this space is clear; the odor of ash and smoke has faded. He is no longer in Bail’s body, on Mustafar.

Ben exhales, shakily, with relief. 

But the darkness has not abated, and Ben blinks, and realizes there’s something covering his eyes. Something soft; a kind of cloth.

He goes to raise his hand, to brush it off, and finds he can’t move his hand. Either of his hands. Something is tethering his wrists in place. He shifts slightly, and realizes he’s sitting in a chair, and his arms are tied down to the arms of the chair.

 _Where am I?_ Ben thinks.

He shifts, trying to ascertain the limits of his movements, and gasps at the sudden pain in his side. His hands automatically try to reach for the spot, a wound Ben cannot see in his side, a wound he has no memory of receiving. But of course he can’t get to it.

So he chooses to ignore it for the moment.

Instead, he reaches out, searching just as blindly as he physically is, stretching for that irrepressible light that is his own guiding star: Rey.

He can’t feel her anywhere.

Fear hardens Ben’s veins.

“Rey?” he calls.

There is no response. Ben hadn’t been expecting one. He can’t sense the presence of anyone else with him, in whatever room this is.

“Can anyone hear me?” he asks, into the empty space.

Silence echoes back at him. And then--

“... I hear you.”

The voice is coming from an intercom, distorting it into something more mechanical than it naturally sounds, but it’s a voice Ben recognizes.

“Poe,” Ben breathes, and he starts to smile with relief. “I’m still on the Resistance Base, then?”

Poe doesn’t respond right away. Ben’s smile drops.

“What’s going on?” Ben asks. “Why am I in here, like this? Where’s--”

But even as Ben speaks, he puts it together. Why his body has been tied down and blindfolded. Why he is alone in an unknown room.

Why Rey has not answered him.

“Poe,” Ben snaps. “Poe, what did Bail do?”

“So you’re Ben, then?” Poe replies.

 _“Yes,”_ Ben replies, hurriedly. “Go get one of the Jedi, they’ll confirm I’m me--”

“They’re a little, uh… Busy at the moment.”

Ben frowns. “Doing… doing _what?”_

* * *

“Rey.”

Rey gasps, consciousness snapping her back to reality. She immediately wishes she hadn’t taken such a deep breath, as her throat is set on fire with the sudden rush of air. She tries to cry out, but no sound comes; only a horrible, muffled croak.

“Ssh, Rey, Rey, calm down,” comes a soft voice, and Rey blinks, and her vision is filled by Finn. He’s leaning over her, the fluorescent light over his head creating a soft halo. She blinks, and he’s joined by Jannah. Dried blood has coagulated on the side of Jannah’s face. Rey’s eyes widen at the sight, and she raises her hand towards the mark.

Jannah smiles. “I’m fine, it’s just a cut. Only needed one squirt of bacta.”

“Unfortunately, you’ll need a bit more care than that,” a new voice says, and Jannah briefly vanishes, replaced by Major Kalonia. The woman peers down at Rey with obvious sympathy. “You were strangled, Jedi Knight.”

Rey blinks.

And then she remembers.

In the next moment, she’s struggling again, fighting the hands holding her down to what she now realizes is a medical cot. But these hands are gentle and warm; these hands belong to her brother.

“Rey, you gotta still,” Finn says, and though he’s doing his best not to hurt her, she can see his determination to keep her still for Kalonia is outpacing his softness. “We’re trying to help you. Major Kalonia needs to run some tests, to make sure your spine, arteries, and veins aren’t compromised.”

That gets Rey to freeze. She stares, eyes wide.

“Common side effects of strangulation,” Kalonia confirms. She has a small penlight in her hand, and is running it up and down Rey’s throat, studying the inside. Rey looks down, and sees a medical droid is at Kalonia’s side, a screen outlining the shape of Rey’s throat. Jannah is watching this droid with rapt eyes, biting at her nails.

“Sit up, please,” Kalonia says, and Rey lets Finn pull her to a seated position, his hand anchoring her back. Kalonia unearths a stethoscope from out of nowhere, and slides it down the back of Rey’s shirt, over her skin.

“This will hurt,” Kalonia continues, “But it is necessary. Take a deep breath, please.”

She’s right. It _does_ hurt. Like there are knives hacking at Rey’s lungs with each stuttered inhale and exhale. Rey squeezes her eyes shut, and grips Finn’s hand in hers, and though she must be close to breaking his fingers, he doesn’t so much as wince.

When Rey opens her eyes, it’s to see Jannah watching, her eyes filled with tears.

Rey is surprised to feel a tear sliding down her own face.

“Lungs are good,” Kalonia says. “Your airway isn’t permanently compromised. I’m afraid to say you’ll likely have a small cough for a bit, not to mention some truly horrible bruises on your throat. Your voice should come back in a day or two.”

“Sooner than that,” Finn says, and he looks at Rey. “Don’t worry, Jannah and I will heal--”

He is stopped by a hand to his shoulder. Kalonia looks down at him, shaking her head.

“Normally,” she says, “I’d of course agree with Force healing as treatment. But I think… I think in this case there is more to consider.”

Finn frowns. “Like what?”

Rey lifts her hand, and wipes the tears from her face, frowning at the warm liquid on her fingers.

“Trauma,” Kalonia murmurs.

* * *

It takes every ounce of Ben’s training as a Jedi, all those hours he spent on breathing exercises, on learning how to meditate in the shadow of the Temple on Devaron, to keep him calm once Poe has told him that Bail strangled Rey.

“Finn and Jannah are with her in the med center,” Poe says. “Major Kalonia’s looking her over, to make sure… There aren’t any, uh… permanent. Problems.”

_Permanent._

“Rose came screaming out of that little kitchen nook you guys like to cook in,” Poe continues. “Screaming for a medic, saying there’d been an attack. I’ve… I’ve never heard Rose scream like that. So, you know, I came out to see what was going on. And in the kitchen was… your body, unconscious, bleeding from a shot to the side from Jannah’s bow. And Jannah was over you, pointing her bow at your back, bleeding from her head. And Rey was unconscious, with… Her whole neck was _red.”_

 _Breathe,_ Ben thinks. _Just breathe._

_Like Rey couldn’t._

He grips the armrests of the chair under him.

“Poe,” Ben whispers. “Poe, let me go to her.”

“Look, I just…” Poe sighs over the intercom. “It really does sound like you, Ben. I think it’s you. But I don’t… I don’t know for sure, and I _can’t_ let Rey get hurt again like that.”

Poe’s heart is in the right place, Ben knows. More than that; he’s _right._

But the idea that Rey needs to be protected from _him_ of all people… It makes Ben want to set himself on fire.

“Mom,” he says, now. “Poe, where is my mother?”

“She’s… in a meeting.”

“Pull her out,” Ben snaps. “Get her in here. She’ll know it’s me in the Force.”

Poe hesitates. “Okay, but… That’s our Commander-in-Chief--”

“Then come in here with her,” Ben snarls. “And put a blaster to my head, and the second I try to attack her, _shoot me.”_

Ben is breathing harder now, still unable to see. He thinks about trying to tear out of this room with the Force, but knows that if anything’s going to disprove he is himself, that it’s smashing up the Resistance Base.

“Poe,” Ben breathes. “Poe, _please.”_

The pause is longer this time.

“Okay,” Poe says, sounding exhausted. “Wait a minute.”

Silence falls, and Ben is left in the dark.

* * *

Rey watches as Jannah washes the blood off her cheek.

“Really, it’s fine,” she assures Rey, catching Rey’s worried look. “I just… hit my head on the wall, when… When Kylo Ren threw me. Knocked me for a loop, but I didn’t pass out. Just ask Rose.”

Rey opens her mouth, makes it one syllable--a mottled _wh_ noise--and coughs. When she lifts her hand to her throat, to massage the skin there, her touch only adds to the pain, and she flinches.

“Don’t speak,” Finn says, for the upteenth time. “Here.”

He hands her a datapad, an empty note blinking at Rey. She sighs, and types.

WHERE IS ROSE?

“Not sure,” Jannah admits. “She’s okay, though. She was the one who landed that truly _stellar_ blow to Kylo Ren. Using a pot. It was amazing.”

The imagery would be amusing, Rey thinks, if it had not come at such a cost.

She types her next question.

WHERE IS HE?

Jannah and Finn exchange a glance.

“Poe turned up,” Jannah says. “When I told him what had happened, that Kylo Ren and Ben had switched, he brought in a few soldiers, and they dragged his body out of there. I don’t know where they went after that. I chose to stay with you.”

Rey nods, grateful. And yet:

SOMEONE SHOULD BE THERE. WHEN HE WAKES UP.

Finn scowls. “He isn’t gonna wake up alone--”

BEN COULD WAKE UP IN THAT BODY.

Rey deeply hates how she says _that body._ It’s _Ben’s_ body.

The hands that strangled her, the hands that almost killed her: They’re Ben’s hands.

It wasn’t Ben, but it was his hands.

She’ll have to reckon with this sooner rather than later. She has no idea how she will.

A quiet knock on the doorway makes Rey look up.

Leia stands there. She’s twisting her hands together, a nervous tic her son inherited. On one of Leia’s fingers is the ring she never takes off, the ring that bears identical blue stones, given to her by identical sons long ago.

“Rey,” Leia says, soft and imploring, and Rey feels a new batch of tears slide down her face.

Leia walks to her side. She extends her hand, and Rey hurries to take it, clinging to the older woman’s fingers.

“Rose told me,” Leia says, in response to Rey’s unspoken question. “I am so sorry.”

Rey shakes her head. Leia understands.

“I can still be sorry,” she insists. “May I sit with you?”

Rey has scooted back on the cot, and Finn has offered Leia his seat, when another knock comes from the doorway. They look over to find Poe standing there.

“Commander-in-Chief,” Poe says, and his eyes flick around the room, settling on Rey. “He’s awake. And he says he’s Ben.”

* * *

Ben waits in the dark. He focuses on regulating his breathing, on not fidgeting, on remaining still.

It feels like an eon before the door slides open.

Ben turns his head, automatically tracking the movement.

He can’t see her, but he can feel her just as keenly as he always does. She is a sliver of moonlight across a clear pool of water; the first drops of dew in the light of the rising sun; the swishing beacon of a lighthouse at the edge of the sea.

“Mom,” Ben whispers.

There is a soft sigh, of clear relief.

“Ben,” Leia replies, and he hears her walk forward, her boots making soft tapping noises against the stone floor. A moment later, the blindfold over his eyes has lifted, and he can look into her face.

She looks very weary, Ben thinks. Almost like she’s aged another lifetime since he looked at her last.

Behind her stands Poe, expression dark and grim. Though he isn’t pointing it at Ben, he’s holding his blaster in his hand.

“How is she?” Ben asks. “Have you seen her?”

Leia nods. “Yes. She’s weak. Her neck is mottled. She’s still in shock.”

Leia’s sentences are short, clipped. Designed to state facts plainly, with little emotion. They leave Ben shaken and bereft anyway.

“Please,” Ben breathes. “I need to see her.”

“I know,” Leia agrees. “I know. We only… We have to think about this.”

Ben stares. “Think about _what?”_

“How to… get you to her.”

Slowly, Ben understands.

“I can’t walk through the base anymore,” he murmurs.

“Unattended, no,” Leia confirms. “This… These switchings. With Kylo Ren. It seems clear to me that they are escalating; and not only in frequency, but in… ability, for lack of a better word.”

Because this time, Kylo Ren got his hands on Rey. This time, he nearly killed her.

“And you are privy to a lot of information, Ben,” Leia continues. “Information many Resistance soldiers don’t even see or know. Information that should in no way be seen by the Supreme Leader of the First Order.”

“I know,” Ben says, softly.

He’ll need to, at some point, sit and reflect on the things Vesper told him about the Darkstaff and Bail. But he is so consumed by fear and horror over what has happened to Rey, that he does not have any leftover space in his mind for anything else.

“Cover my eyes,” Ben suggests. “Lead me there, like a…”

He trails off.

_Like a prisoner._

Leia’s lips thin.

“I might agree with you,” she says, “Except for the kind of… distraction, it would be, for someone to witness us treating the Master of the New Jedi Order that way.”

Because there is value in the Jedi, in their message, and their legend. It was the legend of Luke Skywalker that first introduced Rey, Finn, and Jannah to the Force; and the legend of Luke Skywalker single-handedly defeating Kylo Ren on Crait, standing down the First Order itself, that has sustained the Resistance in the last five years. Ben knows that while people can be skittish around him, can avoid his eyes, can seemingly not know how to treat him, that they do it because he’s a symbol. He is more than a man, to so many.

The Resistance is proud of its close ties to the New Jedi Order. It is a widely advertised fact.

For many, Leia included, the word _Jedi_ is synonymous with _hope._

Ben’s anger with Bail upon finding out what he did to Rey has not diminished in any way; yet it somehow increases, when he thinks of how Bail has stolen even _that_ bit of goodness from him. The hope and peace that Ben has worked so hard to embody, to spread, even as he wears the face of the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Ben has been able to be _himself._

Yet another beloved thing Kylo Ren has robbed of Ben, and of Leia.

“How far is the med center from here?” Ben asks, as this room is completely empty and windowless, and he doesn’t know where he is on the base. Possibly a rarely used interrogation room.

“Quarter of a mile or so,” Poe says, speaking for the first time.

Ben looks at him, craning his neck to peer around Leia.

“Can you lockdown this part of the base?” Ben asks. “I… Is that possible?”

The base is never empty, never fully settled, not even in the middle of the night, as ships still arrive and depart at all hours. Even when Ben and Rey walked through the base on the night of his birthday, when it was well past midnight, they still ran into others. Though the distance between this room and the med center is relatively short in comparison, Ben isn’t convinced Poe can guarantee a lockdown.

But Poe seems to think about it, his eyebrows drawing together. He bites his lip.

Leia turns around to face her second-in-command.

Poe nods, more to himself than to Leia or Ben.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I think we can. Gimme ten minutes.”

And he’s off, vanishing out the door; he leaves it open.

Leia approaches Ben, and he watches as she reaches out for the cords tying his wrists to the chair--

“Don’t,” Ben whispers.

She frowns. “Ben--”

“I still haven’t figured out the catalyst of the switch,” Ben says. “Sure, switching _now_ would be… much more rapid than the switchings have been previously, but… But I cannot definitively say it won’t happen. Until there is another, armed person in this room, I must advise that you leave me be.”

Leia sighs, but takes his counsel; she withdraws her hand, folding her hands primly in front of her, looking down at him. With him seated and her standing, he has to look up to see her, and this perspective sends a jolt of recognition through him, that is quickly followed by self-loathing and anger.

“He used to beat her,” Ben whispers, and Leia frowns in confusion, but doesn’t interrupt. “When she was younger, and she didn’t yet know how to defend herself, when she still relied on him for shelter and food. He’d beat her if he thought she didn’t scavenge enough valuable metals. He’d slap her around, grab her arm too tightly, throw her against the wall. Wrap his meaty hands around her neck until she saw stars.”

Ben stares at the plain cement ground under his feet, rather than meet Leia’s eyes.

“The first two years after she was left on Jakku, she lived with him,” Ben says. “Plutt, who ran Niima Outpost. He trained her, taught her how machines worked, what to look for in a wreck, how to repair gears and switches, and she absorbed it all. But he sent her out alone, to the badlands and the wastelands. She had to make the trek everyday, all on her own. She had to traverse the Star Destroyers and the TIE fighters and the x-wings and all the other discarded ships and machines, all on her own. And then she’d return to him with her haul, and if it wasn’t enough, if _he_ decided it wasn’t enough, in exchange for his shelter and his food and his lessons… He’d beat the _shit_ out of her. A child, a little girl. And she took it, because she _needed_ him.”

Tears slide down Ben’s face. He feels them on his suddenly cold skin.

“Isn’t that deplorable,” he murmurs. “She endured it, she tolerated it, because she needed her abuser. She believed she needed him.”

“Ben,” Leia whispers, and Ben shakes his head.

“She first told me about that four years ago,” he says. “And I have always sworn that I’ll never do… _anything_ like that to her. Even when we spar, part of me is… I’m always conscious of how I’m attacking her, how I move her, because I can’t _stand_ thinking that I’m putting her back in that position, that powerlessness, that abuse she endured as a child. And she teases me for that, you know? She teases me that I’m too easy on her sometimes, that I hold back. I think I’m better about it now, but only because _she’s_ better. But I would still… The thought of ever taking my hand and hitting her face, even in practice… The thought of putting my hands around her _neck…”_

“It wasn’t you,” Leia says.

Ben laughs, but it is cold and bitter.

“I know,” he says. “I know it wasn’t. But it was my _hands._ And it was my face she looked into. My eyes she thought she was going to die looking at.”

He thinks of Rey on the _Millennium Falcon,_ after her first confrontation with Bail in Ben’s body, when Ben was adrift and afraid:

_“My love,” she whispers. “You’re going to be okay. We are going to be okay.”_

Her certainty, her voice, her love; how it had grounded him.

_“We’ve faced worse, you and I,” Rey murmurs. “We’ll get through this.”_

He doesn’t know how they’re going to get through this.

Ben squeezes his eyes shut, feels his tears fall harder.

 _Bail,_ Ben thinks, as it is finally too much, far too much. It is ten years of carrying a broken heart, six years of total loneliness. It is five years without a beloved father, and eleven years since a mother lost her son. 

For the first time in his life, Ben does not only allow himself to think it; he allows himself to mean it. To know he would do it immediately, right now, if the opportunity presented itself.

Obi-Wan told him how to do it. Anakin confirmed the time was coming.

 _Bail,_ Ben thinks. 

_I am going to kill you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Shatterpoints were perceived like faults in a Corusca gem. In relation to events, a single "strike," or action, could cause events to transpire completely differently than they might otherwise have. Often, shatterpoints existed for only brief moments, as they could be affected by even the smallest actions." [Wookieepedia]
> 
> Putting Ben/Bail on Mustafar because I looooved that opening scene of TROS on Mustafar, it was so cool.
> 
> And yeah... Oof. There's been a lot, in this story and the previous one, about how Ben knows he will have to face Bail before the end. And he thinks of that as something he has to do, without wanting to do it. This incident is the last straw. He's finally prepared, and ready.


	12. Set The Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "All the way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: body horror [not any of our main characters]

When Rey sees Ben for the first time since Bail attacked her while wearing his body, he feels different than he ever has before. And this is why she white-knuckles Finn’s hand, and that is why Finn gently covers her hand with his, and looks at the doorway, and says, “Maybe later?”

Ben can’t see her at all, due to the cloth blindfold covering his eyes, but she is sure he can feel her just as acutely as ever. His wrists are ensnared in binders, and she wonders if that was Ben’s idea and Poe agreed, or Poe’s idea and Ben agreed. She doesn’t think it was an idea that came originally from Leia; though Leia does not have many hard lines she refuses to cross, though Leia almost certainly  _ thought _ of the idea to bind Ben’s hands, Rey doubts Leia would ever have voiced it. It’s  _ Ben. _

“Rey,” Ben says, breathing her name like a prayer. He remains in the doorway, and does not advance.

“Ta--” Rey tries, and has to stop, wincing at the pain in her hoarse throat.

Ben flinches like he’s been struck.

Rey lets go of Finn’s hand, to take up the datapad on her other side. Everyone in the room who can see--Finn, Jannah, Poe, Leia, and Major Kalonia--watch her movement.

Rey types: I WANT TO SEE HIS EYES.

Finn looks at her. “You’re sure?”

Rey nods, holding Finn’s gaze, pouring every ounce of her certainty in that glance. Finn glances at Jannah, and the two of them seem to exchange an unspoken agreement, as Jannah straightens, casually rearranging the energy bow slung around her shoulders for easier access. Rey frowns at the move, but does not object.

“She wants to see his eyes,” Finn says. Ben bows his head, and Leia tugs the blindfold off.

His eyes find her immediately, as they always seem to do when he enters a crowded room.

Ben stares at her, and the horror and shock and self-loathing seeps through the Force, enough to make Jannah wince and Finn audibly swallow. Rey fights to remain strong and sure; because whenever Ben slips, whenever he is overcome with emotion, whether it be heartache or anger or pain, it is Rey who holds it together, Rey who is the shoulder he leans on. That’s their relationship, as partners and Jedi. If one should stumble, then the other will pick them up.

_ “Carry me home, Rey.” _

She watches as Ben’s eyes focus in on her neck. She knows it looks terrible. She insisted, and Jannah had led her to a mirror, so Rey could see the damage for herself. Her skin is a medley of red, with shockingly clear finger marks on her skin, and she can see how Ben zeroes in on these shapes, and recognizes the imprint of his own fingers in them.

Ben is biting his lip so hard that Rey is a little surprised he hasn’t bitten through it.

She looks at his hands, and sees how he’s tightened them into fists below the binders. Bypassing the datapad, she mimes removing the binders.

Fear darkens Ben’s face. He shakes his head.

“No,” he whispers. “No, it’s too dangerous.”

Everyone in the room seems to agree, as no one voices an argument. But their expressions tell her they dearly wish to.

Rey returns to the datapad. She types quickly, and holds it in front of her, so Ben can read it from the doorway.

I WANT YOU TO HOLD ME.

His face crumples. Rey lifts her chin, staring him down. She waits.

It is Leia who moves first, who gently takes the binders off Ben’s wrists. She squeezes Ben’s fingers as she pulls away, a mother’s comforting touch. Ben looks down at her, and Leia cocks an eyebrow, some of her familiar sass returning, and nods in Rey’s direction. Ben takes a deep breath.

He looks at Finn and Jannah. “Don’t go far.”

Rey is sure they wouldn’t have, even if Ben had not told them to stay.

Ben walks to her, slowly, and she initially thinks of how the ripper-raptors of Jakku would stalk bloggins in Kelvin Ravine, picking their way over the sand, sneaking up on their oblivious prey. She immediately nixes this thought; she does not want to think of herself as prey, and Ben a predator. It is too close to what has just happened that has led to them being here.

He reaches the cot she sits on with Finn. Finn shuffles to the side a bit, to give her space, and she lets him go. She looks up at Ben, and in spite of knowing who he is and where they are, her hands tighten around the edges of the cot. The last time she looked up at him, he was choking the life out of her.

No, it wasn’t him; it was Bail.

But it was also Ben.

Rey  _ hates _ this.

Ben slides down to his knees, kneeling a foot away from her, so she is looking down at him. He has not changed out of his light shirt, and she sees the dark, rust-colored stain on his left side, the wound from the shot from Jannah’s energy bow. Ben does not seem to be aware of it; he is focused only on her.

“Rey,” Ben whispers. “Rey… I am so sorry.”

She shakes her head, and Ben gives her a small, bitter smile.

“It is my fault,” he says, understanding her movement without her vocalizing it. “This happened to you because I was standing next to you.”

She bites her lip.

He isn’t  _ wrong. _

This close up, she sees that there are tear tracks on Ben’s face.

She reaches forward.

Ben stills, and watches her.

Gently, she presses her hands to his face, as she has done a million times before. She can feel the moisture under her palms. She rubs her thumbs over his cheekbones.

She gives him her best attempt at a smile.

Under her fingers, she feels him trembling.

She slides her hands down, her palms brushing his neck, and she feels his pulse thrumming in the lining of his throat. His skin is oddly clammy, and Rey is sure it’s his anxiety spiking, warping his internal temperature. She reaches the collar of his shirt, and gently tugs.

He understands.

He shuffles closer to her, until his chest brushes her knees.

She could reach for the datapad, could tell him that way, but she doesn’t want to let him go.

And so instead, she leans forward, and presses her lips to his forehead, as tender a kiss as she can manage.

She hopes it conveys what she wishes she could say.

_ I forgive you. I love you. _

From his reaction, it seems to.

For Ben collapses all at once, dropping his head to her thighs, wrapping his arms around her calves. And it is Rey who offers comfort, as she tries to do for him always. She runs one hand through his short hair, while the other rubs soothing circles on his back.

Together, in voiceless noise, they weep.

* * *

Ben is no longer allowed to walk the base without at least two companions.

They make plans to work in shifts, so there is always at least one Jedi with him, combinations of Rey, Poe, Finn, Jannah, Rose, and Leia. The only ones, aside from Major Kalonia, who know of the danger an unaccompanied Ben poses.

Ben, Leia, and Poe had had a long, loud argument on what to say to High Command. Ben had pushed for total transparency. Poe had suggested alerting a few key members, such as Elya for an Intel angle and Beaumont and Sien as the ones who spend the most amount of time on base. But, as always, it was Leia who had the final say, and Leia who wanted to keep the truth close to the chest.

“Mom,” Ben had implored.

“No,” Leia had said, anticipating Ben’s disagreement. “I make this decision not as your mother, but as your Commander-in-Chief. I am concerned that if… If the High Command were to find out what has been happening, that they would… They would decide to… not ask for your help anymore.”

By that, Ben assumed she meant that Borsk would lead a charge to remove Ben from High Command, possibly from the base entirely.

Ben still doesn’t think that’s a bad idea.

Not anymore.

In the early morning light, Ben pores over one of the new Sith texts, Finn and Poe next to him. While Finn is also helping with the translations, Poe is leaning against a tree, munching on a bag of moss chips.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” Poe asks.

Major Kalonia had insisted that Rey spend the night in the med ward, and naturally, Ben had refused to leave her, and Finn and Jannah had wanted to stay as well, and Poe didn’t want to sleep without Finn, and so the five of them had slept in the ward. While Rey curled up in her cot, Ben laid on the floor next to her; close, but far enough away to be safe.

Ben shrugs. He hadn’t slept.

Finn rubs his eyes. Ben hadn’t heard his quiet snores very much, so he doesn’t think Finn slept much either.

Rey had still been asleep when they’d left the med ward, out cold from the trauma of the night before. Ben had not needed to ask Jannah to stay with her; Jannah’s devotion was far too obvious.

“There isn’t anything in those, uh, texts about switching bodies with your evil twin, is there?” Poe asks.

Finn huffs a quiet laugh. Ben rolls his eyes.

“Nothing that we’ve found,” he replies.

Poe fits an entire chip into his mouth. “And you don’t know what’s causing the, uh, switch?”

“No.”

Finn straightens. “Maybe we should try to figure it out.”

Ben scowls at him. “What, you think I haven’t tried?”

“I think you haven’t had a whole lot of time to really think about it,” Finn says. As Ben watches, he tears out a clean sheet of paper from a large notebook, and draws a line straight down the middle, separating the page into two columns. “And you haven’t had anyone else to think about it with.”

Ben supposes that’s fair. He picks up his thermos of Gatalentan tea and takes a sip.

“There have been four switches so far, right?” Finn asks.

“That I know of.”

Finn nods. “Right. Okay. So, the first one, you were…”

“Asleep,” Ben replies. “The night of our birthday. When the change happened, Bail was eating dinner.”

“What was he eating?”

Ben frowns. “Is that important?”

Finn looks at him, deadpan. “Could be.”

“I guess. Um. Steak, and wine. Maybe something else. The steak looked really good.”

“I bet,” Poe mutters. “The Supreme Leader of the First Order probably has his pick of food in the galaxy. You should’ve taken a bite, Ben.”

“I was distracted,” Ben says.

“Were you dreaming at the time?” Finn asks, scribbling down notes. He’s separated the two columns into four sections, the top of the columns bearing the words BEN and KYLO.

“Not that I can recall,” Ben replies.

Finn nods. “Okay. Second time.”

“The second time, I was on the  _ Falcon,” _ Ben says. “I was digging in some bins for anything that could be useful for Jannah’s lightsaber. My father was pretty good at holding onto random bits of metal and tech that could be repurposed.”

Poe laughs. “Sounds like Han.”

“Rey found parts for her sword in his stuff,” Ben explains.

“Alright,” Finn says, making a note. “And Kylo?”

Ben hesitates. He wonders how much Rey told Finn.

“My brother was…” Ben sighs. “Receiving a blow job.”

_ “What?”  _ Poe exclaims, nearly inhaling a chip. Finn, for his part, only blinks.

“Finn’s the one who asked for more detail!” Ben complains.

Finn grimaces. “I could’ve lived without knowing  _ that.” _

Poe cackles. “Well… Good for him, I guess. Did you recognize the, uh, giver?”

“No,” Ben mutters. “She wasn’t sure what name to call him, either, so I don’t think they were well-acquainted.”

“Probably not a lot of time for romance when you’re working to destabilize an entire galaxy,” Poe comments.

Finn returns to the problem at hand. “The third time, you were on Yavin IV.”

“In the backyard of Kes’s house,” Ben confirms. “With Rey and Temiri. I was showing Temiri the Center of Being stance, and he was copying me. During this time, Bail was traversing the asteroid the Darkstaff was on, with the Knights of Ren.”

Neither Finn nor Poe have questions for that one.

“And last night…”

“Bail was burning down a village on Mustafar with Celosia Ren,” Ben murmurs. “And I was cooking Fried Endorian chicken.”

“That’s kind of a… similar activity?” Poe suggests. “Fire?”

Ben rolls his eyes. “I don’t think that’s it.”

“No,” Finn agrees. “No, this is to do with the Force connecting the two of you. There’s something going on in the Force with you both at these specific times.”

“Or just one?” Poe wonders. Ben and Finn look at him, and he raises his hands in a placating gesture. “Look, I get that I don’t know anything about the Force, aside from that blue tree I grew up next to, but… In the name of thinking of all angles… Maybe it doesn’t have to be both of you. Maybe it’s just one of you.”

“Because there’s no connection like the one between twins,” Ben whispers.

_ Luke half-glances at Ben when he says, “There is no Force connection like the one between twins.” _

Ben gets to his feet, abandoning his tea.

“Okay, so it only requires  _ one _ of us to make the switch,” Ben says, and begins to pace, puzzling it out. “Because we’re already close, we’re already tied to each other. We shouldn’t focus on how these activities are alike--”

“Yeah, because I do  _ not _ want to spend more time thinking about Kylo Ren getting his dick--”

“--But on what we were… feeling during them,” Ben continues, ignoring Poe’s comment. “There’s something… Something at least one of us is doing in the Force at these times that’s compelling the switch.”

Finn nods. “Right. And since you’re here, let’s ask you: What were you doing, Ben?”

“Uh, sleeping,” Ben says, ticking it off. “But I could’ve been dreaming, I suppose; just something I can’t remember. And then I was… I was in the  _ Falcon, _ and trying to think of what could be helpful for Jannah.”

“Utility,” Poe comments. “Trying to be useful. That could be something.”

“And with Temiri, I was tapped into the Force,” Ben continues. “More so than normal, to get into the Center of Being Stance. I was very open, very exposed. And then I was… Last time, I was stressed and anxious, so I was cooking, because it’s something I do to take my mind off things. So I’m not sure what I could have been projecting.”

Finn taps the tip of the pen against his chin. “Not really seeing a pattern here, Ben. I mean, with the Center of Being Stance, it seems like a switch would be especially easy, but… Not sure how it could’ve triggered it.”

Ben nods, frowning.

“Maybe…” he twists his lips. “Maybe Bail was experiencing… pleasure.”

“Good food,” Poe says. “Good sex. Good… finding?”

“I’m sure he was pleased to get the Darkstaff,” Ben mutters, grimly. “He’d been looking for it for a while, it seems. And then butchering people on Mustafar… Vesper told me it was his idea to go there.”

His motivation obviously hadn’t been to go for any artifacts left behind by Vader, as Bail had already known there’d be none. Maybe he’d opted to go to Mustafar to get some of his seemingly endless bloodlust out of his system.

Ben recalls the purple in Vesper’s eyes; even without touching it, the Darkstaff is clearly affecting her. It amplified her single-minded rage, turning her into a cruel, fierce fighter, more so than she already was. The Darkstaff’s idea of pleasure is almost certainly in causing death and destruction.

“You could be onto something,” Finn says.

“It just…” Ben frowns. “It doesn’t seem quite right, does it?”

“Nothing about this does,” Poe says. “But I get what you mean.”

“I’ve never gotten the impression that the Force is motivated by  _ pleasure,” _ Finn agrees. “But this is a good start at least.”

“Yeah,” Ben agrees. “Thanks for talking it out with me.”

They slip into a calm, companionable silence. Ajan Kloss is covered in a light, early morning mist, the sun a smoky yellow thing on the horizon. Ben can hear the calls of the morning swallows, the rustle of the trees at the jungle’s edge, the soft voices of the early workers toiling in the base behind them.

“Did I miss anything?” Ben asks. He looks at Poe. “Does my mother have a plan yet?”

Poe shakes his head. “Since it looks like there isn’t anything stopping them… The next logical move for the First Order is an assault on Coruscant. We’re pulling our troops out of the Outer Rim, sending them to bases closer to the Core. We’ll start sending in ground soldiers, get some boots on the streets of the Galactic City, try to scrounge up some intel there.”

“But we need to be close,” Ben says, thoughtfully. 

“The moment the aerial assault begins,” Poe confirms, quietly. “We need to be there. Or else Coruscant will fall before we can so much as blink.”

“And the galaxy goes with it,” Finn finishes.

The three men look at each other, and Ben is reminded of how much he trusts and admires them. Poe, his oldest friend at this time in his life, now his superior officer, someone he trusts to lead as second-in-command of the Resistance. Finn, his second-first friend, his second apprentice, chaos twin to his partner, former stormtrooper who now advocates for stormtroopers to leave the First Order. Two men who have found each other in the most unlikely ways.

Ben really wants them to get their happy ending.

* * *

Rey’s first discernible word is “ouch.”

Jannah grins. “I could actually understand that one.”

It is certainly an improvement from the muffled, indecipherable noises Rey has been attempting to shift into language all morning. Major Kalonia had given Rey one more examination, to confirm none of her veins and muscles had sustained lasting damage. Rey had then asked Jannah to speed up the healing process a bit.

Jannah lowers her hands, from where she’d laid them against Rey’s clavicle, the soft blue light of Force healing fading into Rey’s skin. “How does it feel?”

“Like…” Rey winces. “Like I’m breathing in sandpaper.”

“Lovely,” Jannah says, grimacing in solidarity.

“Better than it was,” Rey says. She sounds like she’s been smoking a hundred cigarettes a day, washed down with endless bottles of Rodian spice liquor. If anyone should ask, she’ll have to claim she’s recovering from a nasty cold. At least Jannah has healed the bruises.

The trauma of the event, on the other hand… Not even the Force can erase that.

Time, only, Rey suspects.

She gets to her feet, Jannah following her up.

“What’s the plan for today?” Rey asks.

Jannah shrugs. “Probably just translating more of the Sith texts, I imagine. Why? Did you have something in mind?”

“Yes,” Rey admits. “I need to talk to Ben.”

She’s put it off for far too long. Her Force vision, Ben’s use of Force rend, whatever Anakin Skywalker might have said to him, where Ben went during his switch with Bail, their knowledge of the Darkstaff and what it can do, and Rey’s memory of Ben in her past. All things they desperately need to discuss; a conversation they’ve both been, on conscious and unconscious levels, avoiding.

She has another topic to add to that list.

Ben’s presence in the Force.

He is still her sun, still her guiding light; but there’s something… off about him. She’d felt it the moment he’d reached the med ward, but if Finn and Jannah have noticed it, neither of them have said; and if they haven’t, Rey doesn’t want to bring it up. She doesn’t think she’s imagining things. She knows what Ben feels like better than anyone else.

He is her sun, but he is… besmirched.

Touched by shadow.

She doesn’t understand it.

Rey and Jannah walk out of the med ward, calling thank yous to Major Kalonia as they leave. The base is busy, busier than normal; the orders from High Command, calling for wayward soldiers and missions to be halted, for transports to the Inner Rim to be organized, have been heard. Though the official call has not yet gone out, it’s obvious that everyone is anticipating a quick and sudden departure from Ajan Kloss.

“Hey!”

Rose intercepts them. She’s got a bit of grease on her cheek, something Rey does not bother to point out. Instead, she bends, accepting Rose’s hug.

“You feeling okay?” Rose asks.

“Fine,” Rey says. “More or less.”

“Emphasis on the  _ less?” _ Rose asks, quirking an eyebrow.

Rey shrugs, guilty. “Anyway. What are you up to?”

“Getting all the transports ready to go,” Rose replies, wiping a sheen of sweat off her forehead with the sleeve of her jumpsuit. “Commander-in-Chief Organa issued out orders, with the priority being that we’re all ready to leave Ajan Kloss in less than twelve standard hours. I figured, fixing ships is probably the most helpful thing I can do right now. Want to join? Or do you have Jedi stuff?”

“Jedi stuff,” Rey says. “But if we have time after, I’ll come find you, see if you can put me to work.”

“You bet I can,” Rose says.

She gives Rey one last, comforting hug, and exchanges a solidary high five with Jannah, before trotting away to her duties. Rey and Jannah continue their walk through the base, moving automatically to the enclave where the Jedi study and practice; it is Jannah’s best guess for where Ben might have gone, with Poe and Finn trailing him.

Sure enough, they find the three men outside. Poe is scrolling through a datapad, muttering to himself, while Finn and Ben sit on the ground, pages of Sith texts spread around them like a half-moon. All three look up when Jannah and Rey arrive.

“How are you doing, Rey?” Poe asks, tucking the datapad into his back pocket.

“Fine,” Rey says.

He walks to her, putting his hands on her shoulders, looking her right in the face. She doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he seems to find it, for he nods.

“Right,” he says. “Now that Jannah’s here too, I can go. I need to check in with Leia and like a million other people.”

With a kiss for Finn and waves for the others, he leaves, hurrying back to base. The four Jedi are left to look at each other, Finn and Ben on the ground, Rey and Jannah standing over them.

Finn breaks the silence, clearing his throat.

“Hey, Jannah,” he says, in the tone of voice he uses when he is trying hard to be casual. “Can you come… help me with something?”

“Course,” Jannah says, and Finn clambers to his feet.

Ben looks at them with wary eyes. “Don’t go far.”

“Just over there,” Finn assures him, gesturing to where his bag rests against the trunk of a tall tree. He and Jannah set off, both of them glancing over their shoulders, giving Ben and Rey permission to panic and insist they return.

Neither of them do.

Instead, they look at each other. Ben remains on the ground, and shows no signs of standing up.

He flattens his hands on his thighs. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine--”

“Don’t,” he cuts her off, shaking his head. “Don’t give me that. Tell me the truth.”

Rey sighs. “I really am, though. Mostly. Sure, my voice sounds awful, and it’s a bit uncomfortable to breathe, but other than that… Jannah fixed me up very well. Her Force healing is coming along beautifully.”

“I’m sure this was a good learning opportunity.”

“Ben,” Rey entreats, and he closes his eyes.

“I don’t understand how you can even look at me,” Ben whispers, anguished.

“I can look at you because I love you.”

Ben bites his lip, his eyes still closed.

“The second time my brother and I switched, when we were on the  _ Falcon,” _ Ben murmurs, “I warned you. I told you of my worry that your kind heart would make you less cautious of my brother than you should be. I told you to think of him less as Bail and more as Kylo Ren. When I think of that conversation now, I think about how I should have taken my own advice.”

“Ben,” Rey says, again.

He opens his eyes.

“I have spent thirty years loving my brother,” Ben says, and his voice rises, no longer a whisper, but something just as desperate. “Even… Even these past eleven years. Even after he burned the Temple down and killed our friends. Even after he chose Snoke over me. Even after he left me. Even… Even after he murdered our father, and tortured me, and annihilated an entire system! Even after these last five brutal years, when every High Command meeting I have gone to I have had to listen to the latest atrocities and genocides and mass killings and cruelties the First Order is committing, I have loved my brother.  _ I have loved him. _ Because he’s Bail. Kylo Ren  _ is _ Bail. And I have known that, of course I have, but I… I haven’t allowed myself to fully comprehend it. To acknowledge that the man he is now… is not a man I can love. Not a man I can  _ afford _ to love.”

Rey swallows, gripping the edge of her shirt in her hands.

Though Jannah and Finn left them to give them privacy, to talk alone, she thinks they can hear Ben now, due to his raised voice, the agony seeping through the Force.

His Force signature, which is  _ not right. _

“Ben,” Rey says, unable to bear it any longer. “Ben, you feel wrong.”

He pauses in his rant, and looks at her. “What?”

“Your Force signature,” Rey says. “You’re… You’re different. Ever since I felt you in the med wing, you’ve been… There’s something… off.”

Ben frowns. “How so?”

“You’ve always been so warm to me,” Rey whispers. “A good warmth that I’ve always wished to cling to, to never be separate from. But now it’s like… It’s like there’s a shadow in your warmth. An  _ angry,  _ burning shadow.”

Ben stares.

“I don’t…” he pauses. “You feel the same to me.”

“I don’t think it’s me,” she says. “There’s something… It’s you. This last switch, there’s… You came back different, Ben.” She pauses, and adds, realization sinking in: “You came back ready to kill your brother.”

He hasn’t said as much, but she thinks he was building to it. If she has only known one thing about Ben Organa-Solo, it’s that he loves his twin. Bail was the first person he ever loved, before even Leia. It has always been the two of them.

Ben looks at the ground. A wry smile twists his face.

“The brightest light casts the darkest shadow,” he mutters.

“Sorry?”

“Anakin told me that,” Ben says, looking at her. “I wasn’t sure why. I’m still not quite sure. But perhaps he told it to me as a warning. How the inverse can be true; the darkest shadow can affect the brightest light.”

“What are you saying?” Rey asks.

Ben gets to his feet.

He stands in front of her, two feet of space separating them. Rey aches to bridge the gap, to touch him, but something keeps her still.

“I have spent a lot of time, these last five years, fearing and dreading killing my brother,” Ben murmurs. “I sought advice on it from Obi-Wan Kenobi, as if the problem was simply the act; as if the fallout would take care of itself. In retrospect, to ignore that aspect of the murder is an incredible mistake. Not when I feel every life I take so acutely.”

And Rey knows this.

She knows that, to date, Saffron’s death hurt him the most. But the unknown stormtroopers, the First Order sympathizers, even the terrible officers; he has regretted those deaths, too. He does not like to kill. He takes every death seriously, and personally.

She has watched him shudder and tremble as he tries to reckon with the violence.

Leia once called Ben her  _ most sensitive boy, _ and Rey has seen this firsthand every day for the last five years.

“And Bail…” Ben shakes his head. “For me, Bail has always… He’s my mirror.”

Rey nods. She’s heard this before.

“So as Bail has changed, so I have changed,” Ben says. “I will never be who I was before he became Kylo Ren. So in killing him, I will… Part of me will die with him. And I have to reckon with that. And I must… I must ask you to understand that, too. Because that means, more than anything, that I will need you with me at the end. I will need you to pull me back.”

His voice trembles, and Rey bites her lip. She wants to be the strong one here, the strong one again.

To know that Ben is ready to kill his brother… She is not surprised that could create so potent a change as his Force signature. He will never be the same. She is witnessing firsthand, in person and in the Force, the corruption of Ben Organa-Solo.

Her tears fall first.

“Don’t--” Ben swallows, hard, but can’t fight his own tears back. “Don’t let me go, Rey.”

_ Don’t let me slip away, _ she hears.  _ Don’t let me forget who I am. _

“I won’t,” Rey whispers, and it is a promise.

She marches to him, fearlessly, and wraps her arms around him, pressing her cheek into his chest. He sighs, and wraps his arms around her, clutching her, his face in her messily braided hair.

“I love you so much,” Ben whispers.

Rey nods. “Me too. All the way.”

“All the way,” he echoes.

“Until the end,” Rey says. “And after it, too.”

“We have more to talk about,” Ben whispers. “But for now, I just… I just want to stand here with you.”

Rey nods into his chest.

_ My worry-droid, _ she thinks.  _ My kind man. My love. All the way. _

* * *

Though he still doesn’t know exactly what is causing the switch, what the commonality is, Ben decides to give it a go, to try and compel the switch. They need to know when the First Order plans to march on Coruscant, and any details that might accompany it, such as the number of troops and ships, the place on Coruscant the attack will be coordinated from, and First Order leadership who may be there.

And Ben, and the Jedi, need to know where the Darkstaff will be.

When it comes to switching places with Bail, the closest thing Ben has to an explanation is this idea of  _ pleasure _ as part of it, though he is pretty sure that isn’t it, exactly. But it’s better than nothing.

Ben makes a mental list of the things and activities that give him pleasure. At the top of the list is Rey; having meals with Rey, having sex with Rey, training with Rey, talking to Rey.

But there is absolutely no way in  _ hell _ that he’s going to try and switch bodies with Bail with Rey anywhere near him. Not again.

He thinks about cooking good food, like he had the night before; Fried Endorian chicken isn’t his absolute favorite meal, though it’s pretty good. He thinks about studying, because he does find pleasure in that, considers it one of his favorite activities.

And then he spots Rose and Rey in the chaos of the base, sees them working on an x-wing, and he decides he might as well be useful. So after asking Finn and Jannah to continue their work on translating the Sith texts, Ben grabs a toolkit, and climbs up the  _ Millennium Falcon _ with Chewbacca.

_ “Do you think this will work?” _ Chewie asks.

Chewbacca had taken the revelation of Ben and Bail’s switching bodies remarkably well. But Ben supposes that to him, it’s just another thing he can mark down as  _ Weird Force Shit. _ He isn’t entirely wrong.

“No, not really,” Ben admits. “But I need to do something I like doing, that makes me relaxed, that I might also tap into the Force while doing. Working on the  _ Falcon _ is one of those things.”

_ “I suppose,” _ Chewie replies.  _ “Working on the  _ Falcon _ seemed to just make your father angry.” _

Ben laughs. “I get that. She’s a real pain in the ass sometimes, huh?”

Chewie roars a laugh.  _ “She is.” _

They pull up the panels over the sensor array and peer inside. Ben refuses the more dangerous tools Chewbacca tries to give him, settling for the ones he thinks won’t hurt Chewbacca too much should they be treated as a weapon, like a glowrod and a lifter winch. He lets Chewbacca handle the wrenches and hammers.

_ “Do I really have to knock Bail unconscious should he make an appearance?” _ Chewie asks.

“Yes,” Ben says, squatting inside the ship, looking up to where Chewbacca is leaning over the open compartment, the sun shining above him. Ben is sure that in an ordinary situation, Chewbacca would be able to take Bail, easily. But this is not normal. Bail is spiced up on the power of the Dark Side. He could probably take down a Wookiee.

Ben carefully unscrews the top of the ANy-20 scan-mode transceiver, coughing up a bit of dust as he does. “Kriff. We should get a newer model.”

_ “If it ain’t broke…” _ Chewbacca starts, and Ben snorts.

“It  _ is _ broke, Chewie, that’s why we’re here.”

_ “I know, and don’t change the subject.” _ Chewbacca frowns.  _ “I’d like to talk to Bail.” _

Ben sighs. “Me too.”

_ Will I get to say goodbye? _ Ben wonders.  _ Before the end, before I kill him, or he kills me; will we get to say goodbye? _

He tugs the faulty part out of the transceiver, and dutifully hands it up to Chewbacca to look over.

“The jagged part on the side,” Ben says, rolling up his sleeves. Inside the  _ Falcon’s _ walls, it’s hot. And the smell, of fuel and rust and duralloy, is overwhelming. “It popped out at some point.”

_ “Perhaps when you were racing to Pasaana? Lightspeed skipping?” _

Ben scoffs. “She should be able to handle that!”

_ “She’s an old ship, Ben. She’s trying her best.” _

Ben nods, grudgingly, pulling a rag out of his pocket to wipe the errant grease off his hands, frowning down at his darkened fingers. “I know, I know. And I’m very grateful, I--”

The sudden darkness is jarring, and Ben stills.

Outside the window, blue lines of lightspeed shatter the otherwise black abyss of deep space. Ben averts his gaze, quickly, before he can fall into the trance state of the Rapture. He has no idea how long the switch will hold, now that he has seemingly, somehow, compelled it.

Ben turns away.

He’s in a stateroom of some kind, and the size of it tells him this is not simply the quarters of the Master of the Knights of Ren in one of their common transports. No, these rooms are opulent and massive, and Ben knows this is Bail’s ship. This is the Supreme Leader’s dreadnought.

Ben marches into the hallway.

As anticipated, a droid loiters there, ready to be called to service. It is the same make and model as the droid Ben saw when he first stepped into Bail’s body, on the night of their birthday. It has that same human-like structure, with oddly sinewy arms, a chestplate, and thick legs. But unlike that first droid, this one is… cleaner. It is plated in bright red metal, with the First Order insignia, printed in black, on each of its biceps. Where a head should be is only a thin screen.

The lack of head is, for Ben, the most jarring aspect of it.

Lopping off the head of an attacker is the easiest, most obvious way to end a fight. Ending a fight against one of these droid-men will be more difficult, and Ben is sure this is by design.

Ben snaps his fingers, and the droid hurries to him, following him back into the stateroom.

Ben walks swiftly to the desk in the middle of the room. He thinks it’s made of quadanium steel, or maybe phrik, an almost physically nauseating luxury for those precious metals to be used for something so commonplace. The desk is completely devoid of personal effects, with the only items on its surface being a couple datapads, a three-dimensional map of the galaxy, a beautiful set of calligraphy markers, and a lamp.

“The latest report on our plans for Coruscant,” Ben says to the droid-man.

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” the droid-man replies, and on the screen unfurls a topographical map of Coruscant.

“Bring it out,” Ben says.

“Yes, sir.”

The droid-man projects the map, so Coruscant becomes as tall as Ben. He steps close to the map, hovering in the air between him and the droid-man, and studies it.

As he would have guessed, the First Order has handedly taken over the former Republic Center of Military Operations. They’ve also got outposts in the shipyards, and what looks to be a base in the Manarai Mountains, a move Ben is grudgingly impressed by. 

“The point of entry for the assault?” Ben asks.

“The Senate District,” the droid-man says, and if he thinks Ben should already know this, he does not indicate as much. “For the march to the Imperial Palace.”

_ The logical endpoint of a crusade of Coruscant, _ Ben thinks. The former home of Emperor Palpatine; despite the New Republic’s best efforts, its two-decade long name has continued to be widely used on the planet. The Imperial Palace is strategically placed in the heart of the Senate District, near the old Senate Building and Jedi Temple.

“Who do we have on the ground?” Ben asks.

“Twenty assault battalions already in place.”

_ Kriff, _ Ben thinks. Twenty-thousand soldiers; stormtroopers, perhaps, or these droid-men.

“More to come,” Ben murmurs, and the droid-man does not react, likely uncertain if he is stating a fact or asking a question. “How far are we from Coruscant now?”

“Thirty-six standard hours, Supreme Leader.”

Even further away than Ajan Kloss is from Coruscant, Ben notes. He wonders if Bail went somewhere else after the failed raid on Mustafar. He wonders where the Darkstaff is now, if perhaps the reason for Bail’s delay was to rejoin the Darkstaff somewhere. He doesn’t dare ask the droid-man; nothing would give him away as an imposter quite like not knowing which system he just departed.

“General Hux won’t begin his assault until I arrive,” Ben says, and the droid-man issues a confirming nod. “Inform him we will not strike for at least a full forty standard hours.”

_ That ought to give our furthest allies enough time to arrive in the Core Worlds. _

“Yes, sir,” the droid-man says, computing the order swiftly, and sending it out.

“Intel on the Resistance?” Ben asks.

“They are marshaling their forces,” the droid-man says. “General Hux anticipates they are preparing to meet at Coruscant.”

_ Obviously, _ Ben thinks.

“And the Darkstaff?” Ben asks. “Where will it be?”

The droid-man pauses, which is Ben’s first clue.

The second is the way it seems to stumble over its words.

“As you requested, with… With  _ you, _ sir…”

Ben does not give it a moment to try and puzzle through how Ben might have forgotten something so critical as his own orders. He ignites the brilliant red sword at his side, and pushes it through the droid-man’s chest. It cries out, with an unsettling human-like wail of pain that causes Ben to drop the lightsaber in surprise.

The droid-man crumbles to the floor, speared through.

Ben stares at it. Around the still-lit blade of Bail’s lightsaber, a dark liquid is seeping out of the droid. Ben tugs the blade free, and bends, brushing his gloved fingers through the liquid. He lifts his hand to his face.

Blood coats his fingers.

“What are you?” Ben whispers. He leans down, tearing a strip of metal off the chest of the droid. Inside the droid’s chestplate, a space that should only hold circuits and wires, is a brain. A  _ human _ brain, with familiar purple light pulsing through it, light that slowly fades as the brain turns a waxen gray, as it dies due to the blow from the lightsaber.

Ben stumbles back.

He understands now how these droid-men are able to behave so like humans, like their stormtrooper predecessors. Because that’s what they  _ are.  _ They carry their brains, their minds; their ideas, orders, directions. Encased in a less breakable packaging.

And of course the First Order would need the Darkstaff to compel the brains. As the Darkstaff described the Sith Battlelords, the Dark Side of the Force was used to bind them together.

_ Should the Darkstaff fall, _ Ben realizes,  _ the entire First Order Military will crumble with it. _

_ And the Darkstaff will be with Bail on Coruscant. _

The droid-man has not told Ben anything he couldn’t have guessed on his own, save for the reveal of what  _ it _ is. Much of Ben wishes he didn’t know.

He steps away from the corpse, peeling the gloves off his hands, taking the blood with them. 

Ben looks around the stateroom, taking in the tall, vaulted ceiling, the monochrome lines of black, white, and red, the sharp angles of the furniture. There are texts on shelves against the wall, texts with titles relating to war, history, politics, and geography. There is a cabinet filled with bottles of amber-colored liquors, blood red wines, opaque and crystal tumblers. Heavy, resplendent chairs litter the room, little tables holding boxes of expensive cigarras scattered near them. A long table of dark wood rests in the middle, while beautiful paintings and a mirror framed in thick, neatly notched metal hang on the wall.

It is clearly the space Bail uses to entertain potential donors and supporters. Weapons manufacturers, war lords, royals, ambassadors for the Hutts and the Bothans, people of prestige and power and wealth.

Ben  _ hates _ them. Hates  _ this; _ this room, this government, this tyranny.

The evil that permeates this ship, that built a droid out of the parts of men. The last day has wrecked Ben, and it is all just far too much. 

He has called Bail’s sword to his hand and ignited the red blade before deciding to do so.

And Ben becomes a tornado, a whirlwind, whose only goal is destruction and ash.

He tears the room apart.

He throws the expensive chairs against the walls and shelves, upends the heavy table. He yanks the books off the shelves and sends them in all directions. He reaches out, feels the metal desk in his grip, and clenches his fist, forcing the metal to collapse upon itself. He breaks the cabinet, sending glass and crystal everywhere, the liquors smashing to the ground; a familiar label catches Ben’s eye, and he halts the bottle’s fall with the Force to look at it.

A bottle of Whyren’s Reserve.

Han Solo’s favorite whiskey.

Ben is filled with  _ rage. _

He pours the whiskey all over the room, the dark liquid spilling on the books, furniture, desk, table, soaking it all in the acrid smell of alcohol. 

He wants to burn it down, all of it.

No sooner has Ben thought this, and stared around the space, and allowed himself to sink into his rage and fury, does he feel a tingling warmth in the palm of his hand. Confused, thinking perhaps he didn’t wipe off all of the man-droid’s blood, he holds up his hand.

A small flame stands in the center of his palm.

Ben stares.

Pyrokinesis is an Alter ability, the power to manipulate and generate fire. Even Leia, without formal training, has been known to do it, drawing a flame from a lit candle to an unlit one with only the Force to aid her. But the ability to  _ generate _ fire hinges on an already burning fire being available; and this room is devoid of flame, save for the single tendril of fire in Ben’s hand.

He cocks his head.

_ Strange, _ he thinks. The fire does not burn him, does not hurt, only warms his skin. It feels a bit like direct sunlight on exposed skin. The flame itself is an almost blinding yellow, and not red or orange like he would’ve expected.

Ben holds the fire in his hand, and then sets it on the overturned chair. It catches.

Flames lick up the room, the raw scent of fire and smoke overwhelming everything else. The brilliant yellow flames inhale the alcohol, catalyzing its spread, a most fluid chemical reaction. Ben watches the progress of the fire, following the flames as they reach the fallen droid-man, encasing the body fully, an approximation of a funeral pyre.

It will have to be enough for whoever that brain once belonged to.

He squeezes his palm shut, and the fire disappears from his hand.

Ben follows the line of flames, and almost startles when he catches movement out of the corner of his eye.

He turns his head, and sees himself.

He sees Bail.

Bail’s reflection, looking at him in the mirror.

Ben walks to stand in front of the mirror.

It isn’t very big, only showing Ben his head and shoulders. Ben studies his reflection, taking note of all the familiar features, the ones he sees every day. And he notes the differences: the long hair, and jagged scar.

The scar, inevitably, reminds Ben of Rey, as she was the one to put it on his brother.

And Ben is reminded of the last time Rey and Bail interacted.

Ben stares at his reflection, and feels his rage, and his heartbreak, and his grief.

He raises his arm, and a marker comes flying to him out of the fire, from the desk across the room. Ben uncaps it.

At last, he knows, the words will be realized. The promise he and Bail made to each other, over and over again, as children. The promise to stay close. To be united against the Voice. To lean on the other, to trust and love and defend and protect.

On the mirror, Ben writes it.

His first promise to his brother. And his last.

I AM MY BROTHER’S KEEPER.

The story of the Organa-Solo twins will come to an end. Ben will finally become his brother’s keeper; he will kill him, and end his maniacal, evil stranglehold on the galaxy. Something he should have done long ago, but was too afraid to do.

“See you soon,” Ben whispers to his reflection. The flames roar around him, the stateroom falling away in black smoke and gray ash.

He will see this face soon enough. And it won’t be backward. It’ll be in front of him, on a battlefield.

The last time he will ever see it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I know this last scene is Dramatique... But consider, it is visually cool. And also, Ben is a Skywalker and a Solo, and they tend to be Extra.
> 
> The droid-man Ben encounters is inspired by the Dark Trooper Project of the Old EU. The idea was to bring back Clone Wars veterans in service of the Empire by replacing their organs and limbs with cybernetics, a la Vader. While they became effective soldiers, the psychological trauma of being forcibly turned more machine than man was devastating, and led to suicides. The project was ultimately ended. It is extremely disturbing, and tracks to me that the First Order might revive it.
> 
> I'm currently writing Chapter 16 (OMG) and they haven't even gotten to Coruscant yet (OOOO MMMM GGGG). Which means I haven't even gotten to the scenes I wanted to write before I even started plotting this story! I was dead serious about this story being stupid long.


	13. Safeguards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Everything you did, everything you’ve done. It has always been enough, Rey.”

“Do you think it’s been long enough?”

Rey frowns, looking at Finn. He’s got a pinched expression on his face, and is drumming his fingers against the arms of his chair, staring down at Ben. Ben, who is passed out cold, due to a swift blow on the head from Chewbacca, upon the Wookiee’s realization that it was Bail staring up at him from the bowels of the  _ Millennium Falcon. _

_ “Might’ve hit him a little too good,” _ Chewbacca had said, as he carefully fished Ben’s unconscious form out of the ship.  _ “I was surprised. I didn’t think it’d actually work.” _

And Rey knows by that he means the switch itself. Rey is similarly surprised. But there are so many variables and unknowns in the switchings that it’s impossible to say for sure that Ben managed to compel a switch. They do seem to be happening more frequently; maybe the new normal is the switchings happening daily.

She desperately hopes not.

Rey glances at the chronometer on the wall, hanging over the med wing bed that Ben lies on. His wrists are tied to the railings of the cot, a precaution should it be Bail who wakes.

“I’ve no idea,” Rey admits. Bail has been asleep for about an hour. “But I’m tired of waiting.”

Perhaps, if it’s Bail who wakes, they might be able to get intel out of him. She glances behind her, and sees Poe leaning against the wall. Their eyes meet, and Rey gets the impression he’s had the same thought as her.

Poe nods. “Wake him up.”

Finn reaches forward, and lays his palm flat on Ben’s forehead.

Ben gasps, his eyes flying open, his body jolting in place. The second Rey catches sight of those brown eyes, she knows it’s Ben who looks out at her from them. His presence in the Force curls around her, that same brilliant sunlight, combined with a hardened edge, that odd new trait of it. It reminds her of the way the heat of a sun can be painful, how it can sear and char and burn.

“How long?” Ben asks, looking around.

“About an hour,” Finn replies, his relief that it is Ben who has awoken obvious. “Well? How’d it go?”

“We’ve got thirty-nine hours,” Ben says, and he looks across the room and spots Poe. “Until the First Order marches on Coruscant. They’re aiming to take the Imperial Palace. They’ve got twenty battalions already in place and are recalling their troops from across the galaxy. This is it.”

“This is it,” Poe echoes, nodding. “I’ll go find Leia, she’ll call a High Command meeting.”

He’s out of the room in a flash.

Rey reaches forward and unties Ben’s wrists. He straightens, rubbing at the skin of his wrists. There is a far away look in his eyes.

“What happened, exactly?” Rey asks.

“He’s traveling,” Ben murmurs. “On his dreadnought. Headed to Coruscant. A droid… A droid-man showed me the battle plan.”

“A what?”

Ben looks at Finn. “I don’t know what else to call it. It was one of those odd droids, the ones we knew the First Order was building, that we thought were highly technologically advanced. But they  _ aren’t. _ Finn; they carry the brains of dead stormtroopers.”

Finn stares. “They  _ what?” _

Rey’s mouth drops, horror soaring in her.

“The Darkstaff is powering them,” Ben breathes, looking between her and Finn. “The design… I’m sure the idea was there, the idea to somehow combine the best of stormtroopers with the best of droids. The problem with the stormtrooper program was always the brittle bodies, and the possibility of resistance, but by taking out their brains, inserting them into a metal body… They’ve made them machines,  _ literally. _ Finn… Finn, I am so sorry.”

Finn stares down at the cot under Ben. Rey reaches forward, and seizes Finn’s hand, while Ben reaches up, gripping Finn’s shoulder.

“I always knew the First Order was evil,” Finn whispers. “But this, this…”

“Unspeakable,” Rey says, nodding.

“The need to save as many stormtroopers as possible is greater than ever,” Ben tells Finn. “The First Order is harvesting them for all they are. Any autonomy, any individuality they wish to save… Now is the time.”

Finn nods, determined. “Right. I gotta… I gotta talk to Jannah, and the others. We can… We can make a plan, a play. A way to save every stormtrooper we can from the First Order.”

“Hurry,” Ben implores. “We need to leave Ajan Kloss soon.”

Ben pulls Finn to him in a one-armed hug, while Rey presses a kiss to Finn’s cheek. They watch as Finn jumps to his feet, and hurries from the room.

Is it only then that Rey realizes Finn’s departure leaves her alone with Ben.

Ben seems to notice this at the same time.

“Come on,” he murmurs, climbing off the bed. He reaches for her hand automatically, and she lets him take it, as he pulls her out of the med wing.

* * *

Ben spies Finn and Jannah, the two of them racing around to find as many of their fellow former stormtrooper turned rebel comrades as they can. Jannah moves with determination, though he can feel her confusion as well. He’s sure Finn did not give her the full details of what Ben saw on Bail’s ship, only told her they needed to have an emergency meeting with the others as soon as possible.

He does not see Poe or Leia in the hubbub of the base, and Ben hurries, because he knows, he knows, he does not have much time.

He pulls Rey to the Jedi enclave.

The two of them sit on a fallen tree trunk, just far enough away from the main thoroughfare of the base to be seen, but not heard. Though he aches not to do it, Ben makes sure to keep a foot of space between them.

“What else happened?” Rey asks without preamble.

“Nothing,” Ben says, and when Rey looks dubious, he nods a confirmation. “Seriously. It wasn’t a very long interaction. I only…”

“You only…?”

Ben sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “I might have… set his rooms… on fire.”

Rey blinks.

And then she  _ laughs. _

“Really?” she asks, and when Ben nods again, she snorts another laugh. “Wow. Good for you. But, um… Why, exactly?”

“Because I was angry,” Ben admits. “I killed that droid-man when it seemed like it had figured out I wasn’t Bail, and when I… When I killed it, it  _ screamed. _ A human scream. And I opened it up, and I saw the brain, and the  _ blood,  _ and… I was angry.”

“That’s fair,” Rey murmurs. “I understand.”

“Bail has a bottle of Whyren’s Reserve in his stateroom,” Ben continues, the words surprising him.

Rey frowns, likely wondering where Ben is going with this. “That whiskey we had on your birthday?”

Ben stares ahead, picturing the label, the familiar smell as he spilled it over Bail’s things. “Yes. My father’s favorite drink.”

“Bail has a bottle of your father’s favorite drink.”

“There were others,” Ben adds, catching on to Rey’s seriousness. It would certainly be…  _ something, _ Ben thinks, if Bail had taken to drinking Whyren’s Reserve exclusively. “A full cabinet of liquor. I imagine he entertains guests, VIPs, wealthy donors in those rooms. But the sight of that bottle, in that opulence, next to a walking example of the First Order’s gruesome cruelty… I had to do something. Burning that room down was all I could do at the time.”

Rey nods in agreement. She does not question his actions in the stateroom on the First Order dreadnought; she accepts them. 

Ben turns his head, looks at her profile, her sharp nose, the curve of her jaw. He thinks of her five years earlier on Velmor, when she stood in the grass, early morning dew shining around her, and held out her newly built sword to him. He remembers her tired eyes, her small but satisfied smile, and the way her whole expression shuttered as he looked at her blade, and deemed it perfect.

Ben looks at her now. “Rey.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. Her hands are gripping her knees and he watches as they tighten.

“No,” Rey whispers, and he knows she understands what he is going to ask of her.

“I should have let you tell me five years ago,” Ben says. “My dismissiveness was callous. You needed your Master, and I refused you. And I refused you because I did not want to know my own death.”

Rey’s breath comes out as a sharp exhale.

Ben never doubted his assessment of her vision at the time, translating the nature of the vision with Rey’s fear and hesitation. The vision came to her so soon after Ben and Rey had decided what they were to one another; so soon after Rey told him she loved him. For her to say those words to him, for her to settle with and accept her feelings, only to so quickly after that see his demise. He understands how she was shaken by it.

“I would like you to share your Force vision with me now,” Ben says.

Rey bites her lip. “Does it truly matter?”

“I think so. I have a… I sense the circumstances of the vision approaches.”

“Yes,” Rey whispers.

“Mm.” Ben isn’t surprised. The Darkstaff had been both omen and confirmation.

He reaches out, and covers one of Rey’s hands with his, bridging that foot of safe space between them.

“Honey,” Ben says, quietly. “Please tell me.”

She flips her hand over, so she can entwine her fingers with his.

“I don’t know how you die,” Rey murmurs. “I don’t know when, or where. I don’t even actually  _ see _ you die. But I have seen your corpse.”

_ Corpse. _ Such an ugly word.

“No obvious fatal wound?” Ben asks, fighting to keep his tone impassive, like they’re discussing some far away battle, an anonymous death.

“No,” Rey confirms. “You look… You look very peaceful, actually. You’ve got some blood on your face, and you’ve dropped your lightsaber, but other than that… Your eyes are wide open, and you are staring up at the red sky.”

Ben frowns. “Red sky?”

Rey shrugs, a little helplessly. “Blood red.”

“Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” Rey says. “Somewhere… rocky. It looks like a quarry to me.”

“A quarry,” Ben echoes.

The entire Resistance, Ben included, are preparing for a last stand battle with the First Order on Coruscant. A heavily urbanized planet, one single city of a trillion residents; Ben can’t imagine a place less likely to have the kind of open space that would create a quarry.

“Is there anyone else there?” he wonders.

“Not that I see,” Rey says, softly. “Just you.”

“Strange.”

Rey shakes her head, and he notices her eyes are glassy. “I’m… I don’t want it to happen, Ben.”

“I know.”

“If I’ve learned anything about Force visions, it’s that it’s  _ choice _ that makes or breaks them,” Rey says, hurriedly. “Seeing the future, and letting it play out, or choosing to change it. I don’t know how, but I am  _ determined _ to change it, Ben. I can’t… I can’t…”

“Rey,” Ben breathes, and throwing all caution aside, he reaches forward. He wraps his arms around her and tugs her to him. She goes willingly, swiftly, crawling into his lap, like she might be able to disappear inside him completely.

He presses his mouth to her temple, brushes his fingers through her hair, hanging loosely around her shoulders. One of her hands clings to his shirt, while the other grips his shoulders.

“I’m so sorry,” Ben whispers into her hair. “So sorry you’ve had to carry this for so long.”

“I’m okay with having to do that, if it means I get to save you,” Rey murmurs, her breath tickling his throat.

Ben shakes his head. “Don’t burden yourself with that kind of thinking. While the future is nebulous, while it is ever-changing, dependent on so many unknown factors… You need to accept that some things cannot be averted. Some things were always inevitable.”

“Like Bail becoming Kylo Ren,” Rey says.

“Yes,” Ben replies, the word coming out of him as a charred, brittle thing. “Exactly.”

It’s taken Ben years and years to accept it, but he knows it’s true. Bail was always going to make that choice. He was always going to fall to the Dark Side. He’s been offered multiple opportunities to change his path, and he has declined the option to return to the Light, to  _ come home, _ every single time. He has turned down Rey, Han, and Ben.

“There is another thing I think was inevitable,” Ben tells Rey.

“What’s that?” 

He smiles into her skin. “You and me.”

Sometimes, he is still that twenty-five year old cargo hauler searching for purpose and absolution, lifting the hatch of the ship he’d thought had been lost forever, lost like his future and family and hope had become. Sometimes, he is still standing there, and staring down at a girl dressed in rags and weariness, looking at him with a soul as bright as a supernova.

“I think I would have found you,” Ben tells Rey, now, on Ajan Kloss, the end galloping towards them, “In any life, in any universe. I think we would have reached for the other. Maybe, in the universe closest to ours, your parents leave you on Devaron, and we become Jedi together.”

“Or you crashland on Jakku and scavenge in the badlands with me,” Rey says, thoughtfully. “We live in my AT-AT and eat stale portions.”

“Mm-hmm. Plausible.”

“Or we are exactly this,” Rey says, “But you don’t die.”

His heart breaks a little at the anguish in her voice.

“It’s important to me that no matter what, you know you did enough,” Ben tells her. “Everything you did, everything you’ve done. It has always been enough, Rey.”

Her arms tighten around him.

“I know,” she whispers.

“You do?”

“Yes,” Rey says, and looks at him. “I do.”

Ben smiles at her. “That’s my girl.”

She kisses him. It is one of the many kisses he has shared with Rey, so many now that he’s completely lost track of them over the last five years and has no idea what the number is. What is true is that each kiss seems better than the one before it, and each kiss feels just as impossible as the first. To know she is here, that she is making the choice to be with him, to kiss him, will never cease to be a miracle to Ben.

In his pocket, his comlink beeps shrilly. Ben groans, and Rey laughs.

Regrettably, he retrieves it.

“Hey, man,” Poe says, clearly apologetic. “Hate to break it up, but we’ve got a High Command meeting we really need the Head of the New Jedi Order to attend.”

Ben turns around, craning his neck to look behind him. Poe stands some ten yards away. He waves.

“Knowing the plan for tomorrow seems important,” Rey says, quietly.

“I’d imagine so,” Ben replies. “Raincheck?”

She smirks. “Of course.”

He steals one last kiss from her, and he tells himself he does it simply because he wants to, because he  _ can, _ rather than because he fears the number of future kisses with Rey is now in single digits.

* * *

After Ben leaves, Rey finds herself feeling a little adrift.

Ben has the High Command meeting for the foreseeable future. She’s certain it’s going to be a record-long one, as Leia and the other senior leadership work through a plan for the assault on Coruscant, and then the hundred little contingency plans that will accompany it, doing their best to prepare for whatever the First Order may throw at them. The Darkstaff itself is a problem that even a thousand plans would not be able to fully handle, she thinks.

And Finn and Jannah are off on their own, holding their emergency meeting with the other former stormtroopers of the Resistance. Rey is so proud of them, so proud of their bravery and efforts. She wants to help as much as she can, do whatever might be beneficial to advance their cause and save as many lost, brainwashed people as possible. But she knows, too, that Finn and Jannah and the others deserve the opportunity to make these decisions themselves. Should they ask her for her thoughts and advice, she will happily give them. But until then, she will let them sort things out themselves.

Which leaves Rey unsure as to her next move.

She wanders the base, thinking she might see if Rose has any other mechanical tasks Rey could help with. She spots Rose standing at the fore of a small crowd, and she recognizes the group as the team of mechanics responsible for repairing and upgrading the starfighter squadrons. Rose is talking quickly, gesturing as she speaks, and she is easily dwarfed by the people around her, the humans and other aliens, but they all listen patiently as she talks. A few take down notes, while others raise their hands to ask questions.

Rey pauses, smiling at the sight.

How lucky the Resistance is, Rey knows, to have Rose Tico as Chief Mechanic.

She thinks Rose has a different, more official rank, but Poe mostly calls her  _ Chief Mechanic, _ and it’s stuck. Rey doesn’t know enough about the structure of the Resistance to figure out Rose’s actual title. Besides, she likes  _ Chief Mechanic _ well enough.

Rather than interrupt Rose’s meeting, Rey moves on, walking instinctively to the barracks.

Her and Ben’s room looks the same as always, though a bit unslept in, the bed neatly made, done up by Rey two days after Ben’s birthday, the morning they left for Lothal. They haven’t slept in it since, between the travel to Lothal, Yavin IV, and Pasaana, and then the night before, when they both slept in the med wing.

Rey looks around the space.

She smiles at the drawings she and Ben have carefully pinned to the walls, drawings made by Temiri, Arashell, and Oniho over the last five years, gifted to Rey and Ben. The children, nine and eight years old, had been much like Rey when they’d first arrived on Yavin IV. While they were all undeniably smart, they’d missed out on proper schooling, and could barely read, could write only a handful of words, and were generally unaware of the galaxy outside the random chatter they’d hear around Canto Bight. It had been Kes and Ben who’d taken the brunt of the schooling the first month on Yavin IV, with Rey sitting in on the lessons, while Finn took his first steps on the Jedi Path.

Rey had always known Ben to be a kind, patient, and thoughtful teacher, but she’d still smiled at how he worked with the kids, how they stared at him with awe, their shock that someone could be so generous and understanding with them. It was a feeling Rey related to, enormously; Ben’s kindness is so foreign to anyone who’d grown up abused and unloved and scorned.

She reaches out, and brushes her fingers over a drawing by nine year old Oniho, a sketch of several red crawlfishes he’d probably seen in a pond near Kes’s house. Next to it is a drawing of Ben by Arashell, made when she was ten; Ben is recognizable as a stick figure with long dark hair and a blue sword in hand. And next to that is a somewhat abstract drawing of the jungles of Yavin IV, all dark green trees and vines, with Temiri’s ugly, lopsided handwriting in the corner:  _ FOR REY. _

She smiles.

On the bed are her and Ben’s knapsacks, abandoned shortly after their return from Pasaana, due to their haste in translating the new Sith texts. The Sith sword Rey had pulled from the wall of the Sith Temple, carefully wrapped in a blanket taken off the  _ Millennium Falcon, _ leans against the wall, and Rey gives it a wide berth, not sure what Ben wants to do with it but knowing she does not want to handle the sword if she doesn’t have to. She opens their bags and begins to unpack, thinking she might as well be useful as she plots her next move.

She returns their coats to hangars, sets aside their dirty clothes for the laundry bin, stacks up their spare notebooks on the table. She is in the middle of making sure the pockets of one of Ben’s shirts is empty when her fingers brush against something hard. She frowns, and withdraws her hand, clutching a kyber crystal in her palm.

It is only then she remembers that Jannah had grabbed three, and not just one.

It had been Ben’s idea to get a couple extra focusing crystals, with the idea being they’d be able to build new lightsabers should the need arise. They’ve already got one extra lightsaber, one Ben had built shortly after taking Finn on as an apprentice, so Finn would have a sword to train with while he prepared to eventually build his own. Jannah had inherited that blade after Finn built his own, and now that Jannah has her own lightsaber, the extra one will be set aside.

_ One extra lightsaber, _ Rey thinks. For four Jedi.

It should be fine.

She looks at the crystal in her hand, twirls it around her fingers, glances at the drawings on the wall.

She thinks of the awe in Temiri’s eyes when Ben showed him the crystal on Yavin IV, how eager Temiri was to have one of his own. If Rey had to place a bet, she’d bet heavily that Temiri will be the next Jedi apprentice. Perhaps Ben will give him one of the kyber crystals from Lothal; or perhaps he’ll ask Temiri to find his own.

_ “Should the war end before you’re of age,” Ben continues, “Then you are more than welcome to join us. Whether that be next week, or next year. The moment the peace treaty is signed; we’ll come here to get you. And you can start training.” _

How eager Temiri is, Rey knows, to become a Jedi. To study the Force, to understand his place in the universe, to build a lightsaber, binding him to the Force and all it offers--

Rey blinks.

_ There’s _ an idea.

Rey grips the crystal in her hand, and tears out of the room.

* * *

Two hours into the most intense High Command meeting Ben’s ever attended, Leia announces they’ll break for fifteen minutes.

“Fill up on caf,” she advises, as Borsk and Wedge tear out of the room, ahead of the pack of Commanders. “You’re going to need it.”

Poe’s beard is fluffy, a side effect of him constantly running his hand over it. Kaydel has been twisting one strand of hair around her finger so frequently for the last twenty minutes that it looks like she’s got an odd, errantly styled single curl. Across from Ben, Cha is standing, her body bent in what looks to be an incredibly uncomfortable position, as she stretches her limbs out from sitting still for so long. Ben looks down at his notes, taking note of the smudges from when his hand brushed the still wet ink, so quickly was he writing. The side of his hand is stained black.

He stands.

He leaves the room, planning to find Rey, Finn, and Jannah, and see what they’ve been up to. The main room of the base is louder than ever, and every direction Ben turns, he sees a map of Coruscant. Someone has rigged up a chronometer high up on a wall, and Ben realizes it’s a countdown, estimating they’ve got less than thirty-six hours until the First Order invades Coruscant.

“Ben!”

He turns. It’s Rose, looking oddly windswept, her hair tied up in a knot at the top of her head with a bit of spare wire.

“How’s it going?” Ben asks, frowning.

“Oh, you know,” Rose says, which is not much of an answer. “Anyway, there’s someone here who wants to talk to you.”

Ben’s frown deepens. “Who?”

“I didn’t meet her, Klaud just told me,” Rose says. “He sent her out over to where you Jedi hang out, warned her you were in a High Command meeting for who knows  _ how _ long. She said to take your time.”

Ben can’t imagine anyone who’d come to the base to see him, specifically. “Klaud didn’t catch a name?”

Rose shrugs.

“Okay, thanks,” Ben says. “Hey, have you seen any of the others?”

“Finn and Jannah are hunkered down with their team,” Rose replies, and he assumes she means other former stormtroopers. “And I haven’t seen Rey for a bit, sorry.”

_ Maybe she’s with the unknown visitor?  _ Ben wonders. “Got it. Hang in there, Rose.”

She pats him on the arm and hurries away. Ben watches her go for a moment, puzzling over this mysterious visitor. Without any revelation or insight, he shrugs, and walks outside.

He keeps his eyes peeled for Rey as he goes, searching for her as a blur of gray and tan among the Resistance soldiers, that ray of bright light he reaches for, but doesn’t see her anywhere. Before too long, he’s out at the tree line, and only then does he remember he really should have an accomplice, someone to keep an eye on him should Bail make an appearance.

Ben pauses, ready to turn back, and then he catches sight of the person waiting on the fallen tree ahead of him. Or, rather, two people.

“Ben,” Maz Kanata calls, grinning. At her side, Chewbacca roars a hello.

Ben smiles, walking quickly to her. Maz stands on top of the tree, and Ben bends nearly in half to meet her hug.

“Maz,” Ben says. “How are you? What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to fight, of course,” Maz says. She returns to her seat on the fallen tree, and pats the space next to her. Ben follows direction and sits. “Leia put out the call to arms, and I came. I’m hoping a certain Wookiee may recruit me for his crew.”

Chewbacca laughs.  _ “He’ll think about it.” _

“Well, we’re lucky to have you,” Ben says.

“Mm-hmm,” Maz agrees. She eyes him. “You look tired, child.”

He shrugs. “War.”

“It’s more than that,” Maz says. “You are tired in your bones. Almost like how you were a decade ago, when you’d wander into my castle seeking a place to rest your head and be among people who weren’t going to try and kill you. At least, with your tiredness now, you’ve got an aura of… purpose.”

“I know who I am, now,” Ben says, softly, thinking of five years earlier, sitting in her castle on Takodana, just after meeting Rey and Finn.

_ “No, you are a kind man, Ben Organa-Solo.” _

_ “I don’t go by that name anymore,” he hisses.  _

_ “Perhaps you should,” Maz says, quite calmly. “Perhaps you just need a reminder of who you are, and where you come from.” _

“I know what I have to do,” Ben murmurs.

Maz’s big eyes turn sorrowful. “Oh, child.”

Chewbacca issues a mournful wail. Ben eyes him.

“You know I have to,” he says, and the Wookiee nods, and does not demand clarification.

“Are you ready?” Maz asks.

Ben considers her question.

He thinks of Kylo Ren. He thinks of the man who murdered Han Solo, and tortured Ben. He thinks of the Jedi Killer who burned the Temple down and massacred his classmates. He thinks of the Master of the Knights of Ren who watched the annihilation of the New Republic. He thinks of the Supreme Leader who has orchestrated mass killings, genocides, destruction, and raw supremacy over the galaxy in the last five years. He thinks of the would-be Sith who unearthed the Darkstaff. He thinks of the Dark Sider who strangled Rey.

And then Ben thinks of Bail Organa-Solo. He thinks of his identical twin, his mirror, his other half, his best friend. He thinks of childhood and adolescence, years spent moving, fighting, dreaming, playing, learning, talking, and piloting in sync. He thinks of lives that have run parallel and then become diverted. He thinks of impasses, and forgiveness, and grief.

He thinks of  _ the end, _ and what  _ the end _ can mean. What it can entail.

Ben looks at Maz.

“I am,” he tells her.

Maz studies his face.

“Yes,” she says, thoughtfully. “I do believe you are, Ben Organa-Solo.  _ The Righteous Man.” _

Ben smiles at her, and then he glances at Chewbacca.

Chewie’s eyes are dark, and heavy. He understands what it has cost Ben to get here, to reach this conclusion.

“It’ll be okay,” Ben whispers. He reaches forward, and grips Chewbacca’s paw in his hand.

“The galaxy is lucky to have you, Ben,” Maz says.

“Actually…” Ben looks at her. “Can I ask a favor of you?”

“Perhaps. What is it?”

“I need to get a package to Yavin IV,” Ben says. “And I need it to be taken there by someone trustworthy, who will do everything they can to get it there. I need someone who will make sure it gets to its recipient. Any suggestions?”

Maz strokes her chin. “I have a few in mind. What is the package?”

“The Jedi texts.”

She stares. Chewbacca is similarly surprised.

“The New Jedi Order will be fighting alongside the Resistance on Coruscant,” Ben murmurs. “I want to think that at least one of us will survive the fight, that the Resistance will win the war, but… I have to consider every outcome. Including the possibility that the Jedi Order falls, and the Resistance is crushed, and our bases are raided. Should that happen, I want to make sure the Jedi texts are not plundered by the Knights of Ren and the First Order. I’d like to save them, by giving them to the person who they will help the most, should there be no Jedi left to teach him. Someone who can become the Last Jedi, if he wants to be.”

Maz looks incredibly interested. “Oh? And who is that?”

“A teenager named Temiri Blagg,” Ben says. “He lives with Kes Dameron, in the village of Primaver, on Yavin IV.”

Outside of Rey, Finn, and Jannah, Temiri is the only person in the galaxy Ben personally knows as a Force sensitive person interested in becoming a Jedi. There aren’t any others.

“He could use a guide,” Ben adds, looking at Maz. “Someone who knows the Force.”

Maz tuts. “Poor child. I wouldn’t envy him that position. The legacy of the Jedi is a heavy burden.”

“He can refuse to carry on the Jedi,” Ben says. “It’ll be his choice.”

“Will he know that?”

_ Fair question, _ Ben thinks. “Yes.”

He’ll write a note. For Temiri, and one for Arashell and Oniho.

Ben’s comlink beeps, telling him his time is up, and he must return to the meeting.

“Think you can help me out?” he asks.

“Oh, yes,” Maz says, so serious it gives Ben pause. “I will make sure those texts get to your boy on Yavin IV.”

* * *

Rey had already been working on scrounging up materials and pieces for a lightsaber before Jannah was ready to make her own. It is in Rey’s nature, to scavenge and hoard, to take something discarded as ostensibly worthless and make it repurposed, turning it useful once more. She’s amassed quite a stash of potentially helpful bits of metal over the years, and it is to this stash Rey goes, lugging it out of the smuggling compartment she’d hidden it in the  _ Millennium Falcon. _

Bag in hand, Rey scurries back outside, running to the jungle.

She’ll need peace and quiet for this next part, the building of the lightsaber. She does not need to bond with the focusing crystal, not this time. Bonding with the focusing crystal is only necessary when a Jedi is building their own personal sword. An extra lightsaber, to be used only when a weapon is desperately needed or for a burgeoning apprentice, does not demand the same kind of intimacy.

But Rey is hoping it can still allow for a deeper connection to the Force than she’d get through everyday meditation.

She reaches a gully, the mossy floor under her feet dry, due to the recent surge of rainless days on Ajan Kloss. She can’t hear the base from this point, and so she settles down, crossing her legs, tucking her booted feet under her thighs.

From the bag, she unearths her treasures, and flicks through them.

Diatium power cell; an easy find. Emitter matrix; harder, but buildable with a welding torch and a bit of effort. Focusing lens, an adjusted washer picked out of a broken droid. A basic hilt, Rey had learned from Ben as he built their first extra lightsaber, was relatively easy to create, especially when the creator wasn’t interested in making anything fancy or unique. This is certainly Rey’s goal.

She arranges her finds in a small semi-circle in front of her.

And then she reaches into her pocket, and procures the kyber crystal.

“Okay,” Rey breathes. “Okay.”

She sets it in the moss in front of her, noting the way the sunlight retracts off it.

She places her hands on her knees, and closes her eyes.

_ Be with me, _ Rey thinks, reaching out, feeling the Force coil around her, the metal bits in front of her rising, spinning in the air.  _ Be with me. _

_ Show me the future where I save Ben. _

* * *

_ The sword sings through the air, the dark metal reflecting the light of the lasers it deflects, shots of red that zip smoothly off the metal, sent back to their shooters. The shooters, warriors dressed in plain garb, tunics and robes, begin to shout fearfully, calling for backup, for direction. _

_ The swordsman cackles at their pleas. _

_ She moves swiftly, spinning and twisting in robes of black fabric, a hood drawn over her head. The sword she wields acts as an extension of her even though it’s as long as one of her legs. As she swings the sword effortlessly over her head, drops of blood fly off the blade, to splatter around the woman. One such drop lands on her cheek, and she smiles. _

_ The warriors are in full retreat, and the woman advances easily, moving into a village. The sky is black overhead, nearly devoid of any stars, as if the woman and sword are sucking out all the light in the galaxy. As she marches into the village, others spill out, villagers dressed just as modestly as the warriors, in undecorated and worn clothes. Children cling to their mothers, while fathers reach desperately for the hands of their families. Beyond the village is a tall, dark mountain. _

_ The woman walks forward. She drags the tip of the blade in the rugged dust under her feet, and it sends up sparks. _

_ “Rey.” _

_ The woman turns, and it is Rey. She’s unusually pale, her lips a light pink, her face drawn and tight, cheekbones sharp. She stands amidst the smoke and death, and gazes at the speaker. _

_ Kylo Ren looks back at her, dressed in full black regalia, cape and all. In the bloody light, he seems to glow.  _

_ “What is this?” he asks. _

_ “The Darkstaff sent me here,” Rey says, gesturing behind her at the corpses, the mountain overhead. Her smile is wide and toothy; almost young. “There should be an amulet in the mountain. The Darkstaff told me--” _

_ Kylo shakes his head. “It won’t work, Rey.” _

_ The smile slips, slightly, but the effect is chilling. Like a thunder cloud passing over the sun. _

_ “It could,” Rey whispers. _

_ Kylo studies her. There is pity and grief in his dark eyes. _

_ “Not like this,” he murmurs. “He wouldn’t want you to do this.” _

_ “You don’t get to talk about him,” Rey replies, and there is acid, stinging and acerbic, in her light voice. _

_ “He’s not coming back.” _

_ Rey steps forward, walking back towards Kylo. The sword in her hand drags on the ground, a spine-shivering noise. _

_ “Don’t get in my way,” Rey whispers. _

_ “I won’t,” Kylo snaps. “But this is a foolish mission. Reconsider. I’ll help you.” _

_ He stretches his arm out, as he once did in a burning throne room of a First Order dreadnought. The expression he looks at Rey with is identical to his expression then; pleading. _

_ Rey stares at him, her eyes flickering around his face. _

_ She seems to find what she was looking for; she nods, and walks forward, to take his hand. _

_ In the hazy light, there is a hint of silver at her throat. A long, thin chain lies there, with a familiar silver and emerald ring hanging off it. _

* * *

While Beaumont dives into what Ben knows to be a truly lengthy list of Resistance safe worlds and their status in joining the stand at Coruscant, Ben opens a new, clean page of his notebook. In one corner, he writes down the stardate.

In the other corner, he writes,  _ Temiri. _

Ben pauses.

His pen hovers over the paper, as he thinks about what to say.

_ Hopefully you’ve followed the direction on the package this letter and its contents came in, and have only opened it upon receiving confirmation that the New Jedi Order has fallen and I’ve died. Not because I will regret telling you the following things only for me to survive and for us to talk again, but because I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. More than anything, I don’t want you to have to carry the burden I am placing at your feet. _

_ I’m a cynic at heart. It’s one of my worst qualities. I like to think my cynicism improves my capacity for strategy making, as it is with my determination to consider every outcome and fallout that led me to the decision to send the Jedi texts to you on Yavin IV. I do this with the following in mind: Should the New Jedi Order fall on Coruscant, alongside the Resistance, leading to the First Order undeniably taking the planet and the galaxy with it, then I need to make sure these texts survive the sacking of all Resistance bases that will surely follow. If Rey, Finn, Jannah, and myself all die, then these texts will be the last remnants of the Jedi in the galaxy. _

_ Save, maybe, for you. _

_ More than anything, I need you to know you have a choice. I need you to understand there isn’t a wrong decision here. No matter what, I will not be disappointed. I could never be; I am endlessly proud of you and all you’ve accomplished. It’s been a joy to see you grow and learn, and I count myself lucky to be part of your life, as your friend and occasional teacher. _

_ But you have long asked to become a Jedi, and I don’t wish to deny you, even if I am dead. I have never wished to deny you. I wish I could be the one to teach you the Jedi Way as your Master, but there’s a chance it won’t be me. If not me, then I hope for Rey, Finn, or Jannah. But as I said, there’s a chance there won’t be one of us left. But should that happen, the Force will not desert you. The Light will remain. _

_ You must remember this: Even if the Jedi die, the Light lingers on. The Jedi are peacekeepers, warriors of the Light, but we are not the Light itself. Just small parts of it. This galaxy has survived without Jedi, and it can do it again, forever if need be. _

_ All things die, Temiri. Even stars burn out. _

And here, Ben pauses. He thinks of the words, whispered to him long ago, in a mother’s soothing voice:  _ “Stars die all the time, Ben.” _

_ But here is the thing about dead stars: For years and years after, you can still see the light they leave behind. Something remains. This is true of the Jedi, too. We may die, but we become one with the Force. Our Light will only move somewhere else. We’ll always be with you. I will always be with you. _

_ Or, in the words of my own Master, Luke Skywalker: No one’s ever really gone. _

_ So if you do decide to follow the Jedi Path, please know you won’t ever walk it alone. Though she plans to join the fight on Coruscant, if anyone can survive it, it’s Maz Kanata. She’ll help you understand the ways of the Force. She isn’t a Jedi, but she knows the Force, because the Force does not belong to the Jedi. I told you that the first time we met. I hope you always remember it. _

_ I leave the legacy of the Jedi in your hands. Literally. It’s a lot to give to another, especially one as young as you, but there’s no one else I trust. If you do not wish to become a Jedi after all, then I ask that you hold onto these texts until you find someone who wishes to become a Jedi themselves, and pass them on. And if you do wish to become a Jedi, I hope these texts will be enlightening and guideful.  _

_ Promise me something. Promise me that whatever you do, whatever you become; promise me that it will always be  _ your _ choice. _

_ As long as you do that, I know it’ll be the right choice. _

_ -Ben _

* * *

Rey holds the brilliant, gold beam of plasma light in front of her. It’s a rich gold, like the rays of the sun as it rises over the horizon in the very early morning. The hilt is solid, soldered together neatly, not a piece out of place.

Behind Rey’s eyes, she can still see herself, with the dark smile, black robes, pale skin, and frenetic energy.

She can see Kylo, his raw pity and grief.

Of all the futures Rey had anticipated the Force unveiling her, that hadn’t been one of them.

The future where Ben dies, and Rey teams up with Kylo Ren.

The future where Rey of Nowhere falls to the Dark Side to try and resurrect Ben Organa-Solo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Ben and Rey have more to talk about, but getting it all done at once could probably be an entire chapter, and we gotta break it up a bit. #Pacing?
> 
> I am Team Dark Rey, all day, every day! [Not to say this is Definitely Happening in this story... and not to say it is Definitely Not Happening... I just like her a lot.]


	14. The Third Lesson, Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Even suns burn out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should have clarified this a couple chapters back but I forgot: in most Old EU canon, the Imperial Palace was a different building than the Old Jedi Temple. In current canon, Palpatine took over the Old Jedi Temple when he became Emperor, and used it as a symbol of his power. This story, as per usual, relies on the Old EU, and has them as two separate buildings.

Night has long since fallen over Ajan Kloss by the time Leia calls the end of the High Command meeting. The Commanders are all exhausted, weighed down with responsibility and determination. Elya sips on her fifth mug of caf. Borsk lights up a cigarra right there in the room, and Wedge accepts his offer of one, lighting up alongside him. Poe steeps his face in his hands.

Ben watches Leia.

The thing about being a child is that you sometimes forget your parents are  _ people, _ that they can make mistakes, and get hurt, and change. More than that, Ben is not just a son, but the son of Leia Organa, who has always been so much more than just his mother. She’s an icon and a legend. Respected and loathed and revered.

When Ben saw Leia for the first time following six years of separation, he was struck by how old she looked. Her graying hair, lined face, anxious fidgeting, had all been equally foreign to him. For Ben, if Leia was anything, it was never  _ weak. _

He looks at her now, and while he does not think her weak, he thinks she is tired.

Tired, as in how Maz described him. Tired in the bones.

He watches her, as she runs a hand through her beautifully styled hair, and Ben thinks of how she kept her hair long and loose when he was a baby, because she got a kick out of how he would reach for her hair and snag it in his fist. How she’d coo over him, tickling his belly, her hair falling over them like a shroud, and she’d whisper--

_ “Stars die all the time, Ben.” _

_ I know, _ Ben thinks. How he knows.

The words are a comfort to him. He suspects that for most people they wouldn’t be, that most would find him strange for thinking so, but the fact remains that Ben has repeated those words to himself enough for the last eleven years that they’ve become grounding. Helpful. 

The lesson is transcendent: Nothing ever truly dies.

No one’s ever really gone.

He spent so many years alone, trying to puzzle it out. Why those words stuck with him, while his memories of his childhood grew fuzzy. He thinks he understands now; because something inside him had grasped the lesson, the truth, and was trying to force the rest of him to accept it. Some tiny part of him knew he’d need to hear it.

Now, at the end.

Leia sets her datapad down. Instantly, the room quiets, all the Commanders looking to her.

“Let’s plan to depart Ajan Kloss in two standard hours,” she says, and everyone in the room checks the chronometer, makes a note, or sets an alarm. “I’ve just submitted orders to our satellite bases and ships to make their way to Coruscant. We should arrive two standard hours before the First Order are set to begin their attack.”

She glances at Ben as she says this.

He gives a confirming nod.

Even if Bail were to discover Ben’s adjustment of their schedules, he thinks it won’t matter. It won’t get him to Coruscant any faster.

It’s now or never.

“Prepare your teams,” Leia continues. “Of course, they’ll already have spent all day preparing, but now it’s time for them to hear from you. Offer guidance and direction. Emphasize what this battle means. Hear their concerns and respond. Be a  _ leader.” _

Ben glances at the other Commanders. Everyone is hanging onto Leia’s words, nodding.

“I’ll give a general speech thirty minutes prior to our departure,” Leia says. “It’ll be broadcast to all of our ships across the galaxy… And then some.”

Five years earlier, the Resistance had issued a distress call, transmitted via Leia’s personal code.

Five years earlier, no one had answered.

But this is later, this is  _ now, _ and the galaxy has had five more years of total First Order control. They’ve had a front-row seat to its tyranny and destruction. And that means they’ve also had a front-row seat to the Resistance, and its efforts, and its goals.

Ben is certain that more will answer Leia’s call now.

_ Now or never, _ he thinks.

The end is near.

* * *

“Huh.”

Rey watches Finn as he hoists the newly built gold lightsaber before him. In the darkness, the beam glows, as anchoring as a distant sun.

“It’s nice,” Finn decides.

“It was a good idea, Rey,” Jannah says, warmly, and Rey manages a small smile for her apprentice.

“Imagine if Evoleth Ren didn’t have time to build his new lightsaber yet,” Finn comments. “And then we show up with  _ six _ lightsabers between the four of us… Imagine the look on his twisted, evil face…”

Jannah laughs. Finn extinguishes the blade, and for a moment, it’s incredibly dark, the only light coming from the dim stars overhead and the fire in the pit in front of them.

A sudden influx of sound makes the three Jedi turn around.

Barely anyone on base had actually been asleep, everyone too keyed up and curious about what the declaration and orders would be from High Command. The mess hall has been serving caf and tea since the late afternoon, and a band of Romins commandeered the kitchen sometime after dusk and have been baking Quinberry cakes nonstop ever since. Mechanics have continued to cycle around the base, carrying boxes of tools, checking up on the starfighters and cruisers. Pilots, who should be resting more than anyone else, have largely refused to retire to the barracks, instead settling down in sleeping bags under the starry sky.

It all feels oddly cozy. Rey has never had a real home but has spent the past four years since she moved in considering Ajan Kloss as her home. It has been so easy to do it, considering all her worldly possessions can be found here, that she has a room she returns to, a seat saved for her wherever she goes. Ajan Kloss is a safe place, despite being the base of a military. It is a world where she lives with her family.

Ben, Leia, Finn, Jannah, Rose, Poe, Chewie, BB-8, Lando. Even R2-D2 and C-3PO.

Family.

Rey stands, Finn and Jannah mirroring her, as the noise increases.

“Meeting must be out,” Jannah says.

Sure enough, Rey spots Starfighter Commander Cha Niathal over the sudden throng of soldiers, the tall Mon Calamari woman imposing and regal. She waves her hand at her pilots, and they hurry after her, as she marches towards the main hangar, a good distance away from the base itself.

Rey looks away, and sees Ben picking his way through the crowds towards the Jedi. He’s got his dark jacket zipped up, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his notebook pressed to his side against the crook of his arm. He looks up as he approaches, nodding when he sees all three Jedi are waiting.

“Evening,” Ben says, so casual and pleasant that Rey nearly laughs.

“Well?” Finn prompts.

“We’re leaving for Coruscant in two hours,” Ben says.

“So soon,” Rey whispers.

Ben looks at her. His eyes tighten, but he nods. “We’ve got a timetable to follow.”

Rey knows that, knows there is no time to waste, but still feels surprise in her gut. After spending the last five years in a state of perpetual motion, working towards an end without actually getting to it, the realization that the end might be coming within forty-eight standard hours is a shock.

She refuses to consider what else could end during that time.

“Would you like tea, Ben?” Jannah asks, offering a thermos.

Ben takes it, giving her a soft smile. “You’re a good apprentice, Jannah. Finn never offered me tea.”

“Was I supposed to?” Finn asks, frowning.

“As my apprentice, of course not,” Ben replies, taking a sip of tea. “But as my friend, absolutely.”

Finn scowls, while Jannah snorts.

Rey is too anxious to feel much amusement.

“What’s the plan?” she asks.

“The plan…” Ben frowns down at his thermos for a moment, before continuing: “The plan is, I’m sending the Jedi texts to Temiri.”

Silence falls, as Rey, Finn, and Jannah digest this.

“In case we lose,” Jannah murmurs, catching on far more quickly than either Rey or Finn.

“The First Order will come here right away,” Finn says, eyes distant. “Burn this place to the ground.”

“Exactly,” Ben confirms. “Maz has a contact she guarantees will get the texts safely to Temiri. I’m going to include a letter that he should only open the package if the Resistance is crushed and the New Jedi Order falls.”

It is such a dismal, agonizing idea. But it could happen.

Not only could Rey lose Ben tomorrow; she could lose Finn and Jannah too.

She could lose  _ everyone. _

She gazes around, studying the faces of the Jedi with her. Jannah, her brilliant, kind-hearted apprentice, so strong and valiant. Finn, her best friend, her chaos twin, her brother in every way it truly counts. Ben, the love of her life, her teacher, the first person she ever allowed herself to love. Now that she has the three of them, she cannot imagine life without them.

Ben sits down on the fallen tree, near Jannah. Finn leans against a standing tree trunk, while Rey sits on the ground, her legs crossed under her. The fire crackles in the middle of them, a handful of sparks spitting up.

“We need to talk,” Ben says. “About what happens to you all if I die tomorrow.”

Rey looks down, twisting an errant blade of grass in her hands.

“The Old Jedi were numerous,” Ben murmurs. “They numbered in the thousands, and never feared that anything could wipe them out. They didn’t fear a lot of things, period, and that  _ is _ why and how they allowed their errors and ignorance to become apocalyptic, and that was what led to their annihilation. Tomorrow, we are also facing potential destruction, and not only because we face a great threat; but because we are so few in number. So we have to make sure the path is clear, and understood.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Finn asks, face tightening in confusion. “If you… die…” he pauses, as if the simple act of saying the words costs him something. Rey relates. “Then Rey becomes the Head of the Jedi Order. Right?”

Ben smiles. “Right.”

He looks at her, and Rey manages to meet his eyes.

“You’ve already been preparing to become a Master,” Ben tells her. “And more than that, you’ve been preparing to be a  _ leader. _ By attending High Command meetings in my stead, by acting as my right-hand partner, by taking on your own apprentice. I have no doubts that the New Jedi Order will continue to grow, and prosper, under your guidance, Rey.”

“You’re already looking out for us,” Jannah says, warmly, tipping her head towards the lightsaber still clutched in Finn’s hand. It is only then that Rey realizes Jannah doesn’t know about her Force vision of Ben’s dead body; she is the only one of the Jedi to not know.

_ I must tell her,  _ Rey thinks.  _ I should prepare her for the worst. _

She is distracted by Ben’s voice.

“Huh?” he asks, eyebrows drawing together, eyeing the lightsaber in Finn’s hand.

“I built a lightsaber,” Rey murmurs. Ben stares at her.

While Jannah may not know what has given Ben pause, what has startled him about this revelation, both Rey and Finn know. She can feel Finn’s eyes on her as Ben gets to his feet, approaching Finn. He holds his hand out, and Finn places the hilt in his palm.

Ben’s thumb pushes the ignition button, and the beam of gold illuminates his face. He studies the blade in his hand, turning it casually side to side, eyes roaming over every inch of it. He turns to look at Rey, eyebrows raised in the gold light.

“Gold,” he murmurs. “To complement Jannah’s white, I suppose.”

Rey shrugs.

“It’s nice,” Ben says, turning back to survey the sword in his hand. “Well made.”

He extinguishes the blade.

Rey waits, certain he will ask, but he doesn’t. Instead, he holds the hilt out to her, and Rey takes it. Ben clasps his hands together, and looks at the Jedi.

“We’ve got an hour until we need to start getting ready to leave,” he says. “Questions?”

* * *

Ben spends the next hour fielding questions. He walks Finn through the finer details of Niman and its varying stances, encouraging Finn to try different grips, searching out how he might change his preference depending on the size of his attacker. He hands Jannah the newly built lightsaber and encourages her to try moving with two blades, one in each hand. He works with Rey on drawing on her senses, interacting with nature, while also fighting with Djem So.

He is curious about her choice to build a new lightsaber. As far as he’s aware, she’s quite pleased with the sword she built five years earlier, the dual bladed lightsaber that contains the broken crystal that had once belonged to Anakin Skywalker. The new gold bladed lightsaber is a single blade weapon, and relying on it now, after five years getting used to two blades, isn’t an ideal way to step into a crucial battle.

But Rey does not show any interest in taking up the new lightsaber, and he doesn’t push her.

As the Jedi practice and train, the rest of the base gains the intensity of a massive ship rumbling to life. This is true, literally, as the cruisers are all fired up as they are loaded with all the infantry on base, all the ships and blasters and bombs and assorted weapons accrued by the Resistance over the years. Starfighters take off, to be flown into ship hangars, while other transports are loaded and sent off to the Core, to get a head start and report back on any new activity before the rest of the Resistance Military can arrive.

Ben catches only glimpses of his fellow High Command leaders. They’re all intensely busy, marshaling their soldiers, gathering supplies and necessities, making choices and issuing orders. He briefly spots Wynn, a headset jammed over his dark hair, yelling into the mic, a handful of aides trailing his steps like convor chicks chasing after their mother. He spies Sien, the Sullustan’s arms always full of  _ something, _ everything from spare jackets to rations to sheathed vibroblades, seemingly prepared to throw supplies onto ships at any second. Ben only momentarily sees Elya when she nips outside to flag down Poe, whose yells are loud but indecipherable from where Ben stands.

When the time on his chronometer indicates there is only an hour until departure, Ben halts their training and sparring.

“Okay,” he says, as Rey, Finn, and Jannah look at him. “Commander-in-Chief Organa is scheduled to speak in about thirty minutes. Take the time between now and then to pack your things. Everything you anticipate needing for a fight on Coruscant. It’s a heavily urban planet, nearly all city. There could be rain, but that’s probably the extent of its extreme weather. Finn, Jannah; you should also go check in with the other ex-stormtroopers. You’ll be with me on the ground of Coruscant, of course, but if there’s anything else to be done…”

Finn and Jannah both step to him. Finn grips Ben’s shoulder, while Jannah squeezes his hand. Then the two of them take off, to go to their respective rooms, to speak with their friends.

Rey stands in front of him.

Ben raises an eyebrow. “You built a new lightsaber.”

“I did,” Rey murmurs.

“Why did you build a new lightsaber?”

“I was thinking about how easily Evoleth Ren’s was broken by you on Mantooine,” Rey says. “And how having just one extra sword for four Jedi wasn’t ideal.”

Ben eyes her. “That’s the only reason?”

She sighs. “No. I wasn’t entirely altruistic.”

“I expected not,” Ben confirms. “But I’m not… irritated or displeased. You don’t need my permission to build a new lightsaber.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Did you see anything?”

Rey bites her lip. Ben waits. He thinks he should probably give her the option of privacy here, but the next day is so crucial, and if there’s anything he should know…

“Nothing that can come to pass,” Rey says at last.

She looks sad, Ben notices. Disappointed.

“Okay,” Ben replies.

“That’s it?” Rey asks, surprised. “You don’t want to ask me exactly what I saw?”

“I’m curious, of course,” Ben says. “But I can tell you don’t really want to tell me, and your tone makes me think it isn’t particularly essential that I know of what you saw. I really only… I only made you tell me about your first lightsaber building Force vision because I understood it to be about me, specifically. And I understood that whatever it was you saw upset you.”

“It did,” Rey mutters.

Ben smiles in sympathy. He holds his hand out.

Rey takes it.

They march through the base, side stepping a fleet of soldiers, droids, and carts. It’s late at night, and Ben thinks it might be close to that late hour of his thirtieth birthday, when he and Rey walked through the empty base back to their room. When he feigned exhaustion and old age, and plastered himself to Rey.

_ “Carry me home, Rey.” _

How she told him of her dream of their future, where he was old and gray, and still teaching Jedi.

Ben drops her hand, instead tugging her into his side. He presses a kiss to her temple. Rey wraps both arms around his waist, walking a bit awkwardly to do so, but doesn’t complain.

They reach the barracks, and their room.

Rey has clearly already been here, Ben notes, taking in the sight of their half-unpacked bags on the bed. He glances at Rey, and she shrugs, unrepentant.

“I tried,” she says, and Ben laughs.

They start to pack, rifling through their closet and drawers for clothes. They have to step over one another in the small space, Rey ducking under Ben’s raised arms, Ben squeezing past her to reach the nightstand. They touch every time they do, brushing the other’s hair, arm, back, chest. Anything to touch, to reach.

He packs a full medium-sized plexisteel box with the Jedi texts, along with his notebooks from the last five years, all his handwritten notes with his thoughts, ideas, and theories on the Jedi and the Force. It takes both Rey and Ben’s combined weights on the lid to seal the jam-packed box shut.

Ben wipes his brow, and scowls at the Sith sword, leaning against the wall.

“I don’t want to leave this here,” he says. “In case the First Order comes calling. But I don’t want to take it with us either. The last thing we need is the Darkstaff in the proximity of another Sith relic.”

“We could hide it?” Rey suggests, looking at the sword like it’s offending her simply by existing. “Somewhere in the jungle?”

Ben sighs. It isn’t ideal; a Sith could probably sense the sword in the jungle. But it’s better than nothing.

A soft  _ thunk _ makes him turn around.

Lying on the floor next to the table is the text that Rey, Finn, and Jannah gifted him on his birthday.  _ Ways of the Cosmic Force. _

“Kriff, I almost forgot,” Ben murmurs, getting to his feet. He picks it up.

“Is that also going in the box?” Rey asks, wearily.

He considers the text in his hand.

“No, I don’t think so,” he decides. “I don’t really want to have to get that box open. And besides, I haven’t finished reading this one yet, and there’ll be time on the flight to Coruscant.”

Rey blinks. “You think there might be something… helpful, in there?”

“I’ve no idea,” Ben admits. “But it’s worth a shot.”

He carefully tucks the text into his rucksack, next to his current notebook. When he turns around, it is to find Rey, sitting on the bed, and looking around the room with wide, glistening eyes.

Ben goes to her, sitting down next to her.

“This won’t be the last time you’ll be here,” he whispers.

She bites her lip, exhaling loudly. “Don’t think I didn’t catch how smoothly you excluded yourself from that otherwise comforting statement.”

Ben smirks. “You caught me.”

She reaches out, taking his hands in hers. Their eyes are drawn to the ring on her finger, the Alderaanian bracelet on his wrist. Symbols of the future they are fighting to reach.

“How are you feeling?” Ben asks.

Rey snorts. “Stellar, Ben.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ben allows, shaking his head. “Me too.”

He takes a deep breath.

“I meant what I said out there,” he says. “You’ll be a great Head of the New Jedi Order.”

Rey scoffs. “I don’t want to talk about this--”

“Tough luck. We have to.”

She glares at him, but doesn’t try to tug her hands from his, doesn’t spit something at him. She only listens.

“You need to decide what your emergency recall location will be,” Ben says.

“My what?”

“You need to pick a system for the Jedi to flee to should the worst happen,” he explains. “Should the Resistance fall, and Ajan Kloss become compromised. You need to pick a system that you know will provide safe harbor, that has people who won’t turn on the Jedi. Preferably in the Outer Rim, for that extra level of anonymity, and preferably a world the First Order doesn’t have much of a foot in. Somewhere you can feel safe.”

Rey considers this. “Takodana’s out.”

Ben grimaces. “Maz’s place is too well-known. And the Mid Rim isn’t very far.  _ And _ the First Order knows enough about it to know it’s important to keep an eye on it.”

Rey nods in agreement. He watches her face, her minute expressions as she puzzles it out. Ben wishes he could give her more time, but this is a choice that needs to be made prior to their departure from Ajan Kloss.

“I’ve got it,” Rey murmurs. “Ahch-To.”

Ben blinks.

And then he grins.

_ “Perfect,” _ he says.

Ahch-To, home of the first Jedi Temple. Ahch-To, devoid of civilizations outside those of the island caretakers and the native wildlife. Ahch-To, virtually unplottable. Ahch-To, the system the First Order spent  _ years _ searching for and never found.

“Before we leave, tell Finn and Jannah,” Ben says. “Create a Force meld, and pass on the coordinates. There’s a chance we’ll get separated. They need to be able to get there without you.”

Rey nods thoughtfully, before suddenly frowning.

“Wait, why did  _ I _ have to come up with this?” she demands. “You’re right here.”

“Because you need to start making choices for the New Jedi Order without me.”

Rey swallows. “Ben. We don’t know for certain what will happen tomorrow.”

“No, we don’t,” Ben agrees. “But I’m a pessimistic person at heart, and I’m operating under the belief that I won’t make it off Coruscant alive.”

“That’s a terrible mindset.”

“Mm. Yes, well, you know me…”

He reaches forward, and places his hands on her face.

“No matter what,” Ben whispers. “I will always be with you.”

“The sun will keep me safe,” she murmurs.

_ Me, _ Ben thinks.  _ She means me. _

He still doesn’t know how he could end up in the past, on Jakku, watching as Rey stumbles through the desert, falls down, and considers not getting up. He can’t figure it out. Even if the Darkstaff has the capacity for time travel… The mechanics of Ben trying to destroy it and inadvertently going back in time don’t quite make sense.

“Bail wanted the Darkstaff to time travel,” Ben says.

Rey looks up at him. “What?”

“Vesper told me, the last time we… switched,” Ben says, guilt flaring up in him at Rey’s averted eyes. “She didn’t know why though.”

“What do you think?”

Ben scoffs. “I think there are a lot of things he could get out of the past and the future. Superweapons, a greater military, Sith lords… Unlike the Jedi, the Sith do not come back to the living.”

He sighs. There is no use, no  _ time, _ in puzzling through theories.

“Want to bury a Sith sword with me?” he asks.

“Hot date,” Rey says, deadpan, and he laughs.

* * *

This time, Ben volunteers to carry the Sith sword. Rey is glad for this offer. She can still remember how her vision-self swung the Sith sword seemingly effortlessly, mowing down unarmed people with a fury, the Darkness coiling around her like a shield. She is not keen to pick up that sword ever again.

Still, she watches, anxiously, as Ben hefts it.

His brow furrows.

“This is an ugly weapon,” he murmurs.

“You can feel it?” Rey asks. “The echoes?”

The cold, the screams, the despair of its past victims, echoing in the Force. Some traumas run deep, and become ingrained in objects; the Force acts as the conduit of memory, bringing the echoes to the surface.

“Oh, yes,” Ben agrees. And then he adds: “This is heavy. Emotionally and literally.”

Rey snorts.

They sneak out of the barracks, passing a handful of soldiers, all of whom give Ben and Rey a wide berth when they spot the sword in Ben’s hand; even wrapped in a ratty blanket, its shape and aura gives it away. Rey smirks at Ben’s blush, as he automatically turns his eyes down, embarrassed at so much attention. It is comedic, that this powerful, respected, and admired Jedi Master should hate having so many eyes on him as he carries an ancient relic. But that is just Ben Organa-Solo, a man who has never felt quite like he fits in his own skin, who now wears a unique mantle, who is a symbol to the galaxy. If Rey were not carrying shovels, she’d take his hand. She’d remind him that no matter how strange or alone he feels, he has her.

He always will.

They leave the brightness of the base, marching into the jungle. The normal calls of nocturnal creatures have vanished, the creatures likely all scared away by the noise and chaos at the base. The jungle feels more remote than ever, quiet and dark, and Ben switches on a glowrod, creating a beam of pale yellow light to guide their steps.

They walk about half a mile from the base, until the noise and light has all disappeared.

“This should be far enough,” Ben murmurs. He sets the sword on the ground and takes one of the shovels from Rey.

They start to dig. The soil is perpetually moist, due to the thick canopy of trees overhead, and the shovels slide into the ground smoothly. Rey and Ben switch off, digging in sync, until they’ve created a hole about two feet down and four feet wide. The perfect-sized grave for a sword.

Ben carefully lowers the sword into it. Rey half-expects something to happen, but nothing does. There is only a sword in a pit.

“Do we need to… do anything?” Rey asks, glancing at Ben.

He shrugs. “I’d really like to destroy the thing and be done with it, but I have no idea how. And I get the sense that fire won’t be enough, unlike the sithspawn. Burial seems safest, for now.”

They refill the plot, and it does feel a bit to Rey like they’re burying a body. It is so dark, plus they way they’ve slunk away from base so illicitly, with no witnesses to watch them go.

“Will we be able to find it again?” Rey asks, as the soil covers the sword.

“Hm, good point.” Ben pauses, resting on his shovel. “We could probably find it solely through sense if we needed to.”

It wouldn’t be the worst thing, Rey supposes, if they never looked for this sword again.

They carefully pat the soil into place.

“What time is it?” Rey wonders.

Ben shakes his sleeve back to check the chronometer on his wrist. “We’ve got fifteen minutes until the speech begins.”

Rey purses her lips. “What’s Leia going to talk about, exactly?”

“Probably a good, rousing speech on our goals tomorrow,” Ben says. “The quest for justice and democracy… ending the tyrannical reign of the First Order… The importance of hope and perseverance in the face of terror…”

“You sure do know your mother.”

Rey and Ben spin around at the new voice.

Standing about ten feet away from them, hands on his hips, eyeing them in hazy blue light, stands Luke Skywalker.

He looks much like he did the last time Rey saw him, in the old rebel base on Crait. He was also something of a ghost then, an apparition, there to distract Kylo Ren long enough for the Resistance survivors to escape. But while he’d been remarkably well-kept then, he looks now like he did on Ahch-To, with the long hair, bushy beard, and tan robes reminiscent of those of the Old Jedi Order. She feels him more keenly than ever before, like raw earth and epiphany.

“Master Skywalker,” Rey cries, stunned. She feels her feet going to him, hurrying, but manages to skid to a halt before she can try to hug him.

She isn’t sure where the impulse came from. She and Luke were never close, their similar stubbornness causing them to take part in bitter spats, his poor views of the Jedi radically different from her more positive opinions of them. 

She thinks it has to do with seeing his face again, after so long.

Here, before whatever tomorrow brings.

She tenses, realizing perhaps that is why Luke has appeared to them now.

“Hello, Rey of Nowhere,” Luke says, warmly. His eyes flicker up and he adds, “And Master Organa-Solo.”

“About time you showed up,” Ben drawls, but his soft smile erases any bitterness in his statement. “How are you, Luke?”

He is only  _ Luke, _ for Ben now. They are equals in the Jedi Order. Both Masters.

“I am what I am,” Luke replies, and Rey blinks, bewildered. Luke smirks. “It’s hard to describe what it is like to be in the Netherworld. Not that I’d tell you.”

“I’ve been reading about it, you know.”

Rey spins around to stare at Ben.  _ “What?” _

Ben gives her a guilty smile. “That Jedi text from you, Finn, and Jannah.  _ Ways of the Cosmic Force.” _

“It’s thanks to the Cosmic Force that I stand before you today,” Luke comments.

“I know,” Ben says. “You’re the second Force ghost we’ve seen this week. Are you an omen?”

Rey frowns. Ben sounds far too cavalier, too casual, for the seriousness of what he’s implying. Luke does not seem concerned or surprised; he only looks at Ben warmly, with affection.

“I told you I’d see you around,” he murmurs.

_ “The last thing he said to me,” Ben murmurs, “was, See you around, kid.’” _

“It’s good to see you,” Ben says.

“You’ve been busy,” Luke comments. “Fighting a war. Working as a member of High Command. Recruiting new Jedi. Reshaping the Jedi Order.”

Ben raises an eyebrow. “And?”

“And…?”

“Do you approve?”

Luke laughs. “What does my approval matter?”

“It matters to me.”

Rey reaches out, and takes Ben’s hand, studying the vulnerable look in his dark eyes. She knows that Ben has always felt self-conscious, felt insignificant, unworthy. It’s a call back to his sensitivity as a child, but was enforced when he was nineteen years old, when his brother chose the Darkness over him. Part of Ben will forever fear he is not good enough.

More than a Master’s approval, Ben always wished for an uncle’s approval.

And Luke understands.

He reaches forward, and grips Ben’s shoulder. “You are doing an incredible job, Ben.”

Ben exhales loudly, biting his lip to clamp down his relieved grin. “Thanks. I’ve been lucky. I have a really good team of Jedi.”

“I know. Rey of Nowhere,” Luke says, kindly, turning to Rey. His sky blue eyes seem to pop in the dark and the hazy blue light of his aura, and she instantly feels comforted. “A remarkable Jedi. I always knew you would be.”

Rey scoffs. “You did not.”

That makes Luke laugh, as she’d intended. She smiles back at him.

“The Darkstaff,” Rey says abruptly, surprising not just the men, but herself as well. “Can you tell us anything about it? How to destroy it?”

Luke turns apologetic. “Unfortunately… I don’t know anything more than you. The Darkstaff is a very old relic. And the Jedi… Well. As was their instinct when they encountered a dark thing, they sought to bury it. I’m impressed you found Sith texts that reference it at all.”

“How’s your Sith?” Ben asks. “There was a word in one of the texts I don’t recognize, and I haven’t found a translation.  _ Vora.” _

_ “Vora,” _ Luke repeats. “Sorry. I never made a point to read Sith. I’m sure I know even less than you.”

Disappointment causes Rey to drop her shoulders. Anakin hadn’t been helpful, and he’d had a full education under the Old Jedi. It was foolish to think Luke could offer more insight than his father.

“Can you tell us  _ anything?” _ Rey asks. “Do you see the future in the Netherworld?”

“Rey,” Luke says, gently. “The future is nebulous and poorly understood by us in the present. Even in the Netherworld, it is ever-changing. And I am not of the Living Force. I cannot interact with it like you can. I can only witness, offer occasional guidance.”

“What guidance for us, now?” Rey asks.

Luke reaches out, and Rey startles when he touches her hand. He is unexpectedly warm.

“It’s time to remember my third lesson, Rey,” he murmurs.

_ “I know you might not believe it anymore,” Luke says, “But I want you to consider that there is still meaning in it, if only that death is not the true end, and maybe life is not always full of final goodbyes, either. Rey. This is the third lesson: No one’s ever really gone.” _

Rey jerks her hand away.

Fury rises in her, causing her to straighten her spine, to clench her fists.

“You  _ just _ said,” Rey spits, “That the future is nebulous.”

Luke remains calm. “I did.”

Ben glances between the two of them, a little anxious. For a moment, Rey might laugh; on Ahch-To, Ben often acted as the peacekeeper, making sure Rey and Luke did not come to fisticuffs over some disagreement. But she is too angry, too afraid, too full of preemptive grief, to laugh now.

“‘No one’s ever really gone,’” Rey snarls.

“Everything dies, Rey,” Luke murmurs. He glances at Ben, and adds, “Even suns burn out.”

Rey is filled with a vicious desire to unearth the sword beneath her feet and run Luke through with it. It wouldn’t work, he’s already dead. But it’d certainly make her feel better.

“Luke,” Ben says, quietly. There is a hint of admonishment in his voice.

“You’d do well to remember that too,” Luke says.

Ben frowns. Rey understands his confusion; if anyone were to know death is inevitable, it’d be Ben.

“Luke,” Ben interrupts. “Why are you here? Really?”

Luke’s already somber expression falls further.

“I wanted to see Leia,” he says, quietly.

Rey stills.

Ben’s eyes turn sympathetic. “Of course. She’ll be glad to see you.”

“There’s nothing in the universe quite like the connection between twins,” Luke says. A common refrain.

Luke and Leia. Ben and Bail. And on a smaller level: Rey and Finn, chaos twins.

“But more than that,” Luke says. “I wanted to see her because her entire team, her son included, have seemingly forgotten exactly who she is going up against tomorrow.”

This gives Rey pause. “Huh?”

“Leia is seeking to destroy the First Order,” Luke says, gently. “And that means Leia seeks to destroy her son.”

Kylo Ren, who was born to Leia Organa thirty years earlier. Her firstborn son. The baby she adored just as much as his twin. The boy who broke her heart.

A tremendously guilty expression causes Ben’s cheeks to flush. “Oh.”

“I know a thing or two about feeling blame for what happened to Bail,” Luke says. “And my share of blame is much higher than Leia’s. I thought I should remind her of that. She’ll go to war tomorrow doing everything she can, damn the emotional fallout, but if I can lessen her future pain, then I thought I’d better.”

Rey hates how good Luke is at simultaneously wringing sympathy and rage from her. He’s a true master of emotional whiplash.

Ben nods. “I appreciate your efforts. Thanks, Luke.”

Luke eyes him. “How about you?”

“Hm?”

“You seek to destroy your brother tomorrow.”

“I do.”

Ben says it simply. Firmly. He knows what he has to do. Rey’s heart breaks for him, his goodness, his fear, his heartache, his loss.

“You’re a brave man,” Luke says. “With a good heart.”

“Yeah,” Ben murmurs. She looks at him; he is already looking at her.

* * *

By the time they make it back to the base, Leia is nearly done with her speech. Ben does not feel like he’s missed out; he’s heard enough of Leia’s greatest hits over the past thirty years. And he feels sufficiently motivated for the battle ahead, as he’s sure Rey is as well.

They linger at the treeline, Ben with Rey and Luke. Luke keeps in the shadows, his soft blue glow threatening to become a beacon in the darkness of the jungle. Privately, Ben wars with himself, wondering if Luke should make himself known to the Resistance at large. He could be a good morale booster, if nothing else. He glances at Luke, ready to suggest this, but realizes Luke is already looking at him. He shakes his head,  _ No. _

Ben shrugs.

Rey nudges him in the side.

“I’m going to find Finn and Jannah,” she says. “See if they’re packed, or if they need anything.”

“Sounds good.”

She kisses him on the cheek, and hurries away, disappearing into the thick crowd, Leia’s voice echoing around them. She does not look at Luke once.

Ben turns to Luke.

“You were needlessly cruel to her,” he comments. “She doesn’t need a reminder of your third lesson. ‘No one’s ever really gone,’ ‘even suns burn out’...  _ Kriff. _ No wonder she’s never quite liked you.”

“I once told you that I thought Rey would not let you go easily,” Luke says.

“You did,” Ben replies, recalling the conversation during their time on Ahch-To. “And you told me you thought I wouldn’t let her go easily, either.”

“I did.”

“I understand why you worried,” Ben says. “But you don’t need to. Not anymore. We know what we are, and we know what we have to do. When the time comes… Rey understands what she needs to do. She’s a brilliant Knight. I know she’ll be an excellent Master.”

Luke studies him.

“Yes,” he says. “I think you’re right. But I stand by what I said earlier; I was not only reminding Rey, but you as well.”

“Even suns burn out,” Ben murmurs.

“The flames of a sun are unlike any light in the universe,” Luke comments. “A dying sun even more so, I’d expect.”

“This is a very heavy-handed metaphor.”

Luke snorts a laugh, loud enough that Ben startles, and worries the noise will have drawn stares to their location. They are hidden just enough in the shadows that they are not seen, though a few heads turn, distracted from Leia’s otherwise rousing speech.

“Metaphor,” Luke echoes. “Interesting.”

“How so?” Ben asks, glancing at him. “I’m the sun.”

He says it, plainly, and feels it settle in him as truth. He has always been the sun. Rey has long described him as feeling like a sun in the Force. A palm reader on Zakuul told him he was a sun. He is anchoring, and consistent, and bright. He’s the sun.

_ And what is a sun, _ Ben thinks,  _ if not simply a very big, bright star? _

_ “Stars die all the time, Ben.” _

_ “Where do they go?” _

Ben blinks, having forgotten that second bit of memory, his own child voice.

_ Where do they go, _ his twenty-five year old self, alone in space, cut off from the Force, had wondered.  _ Where do  _ I  _ go? _

“Ben,” Luke says, kindly. “I don’t think you’ve ever understood what you are.”

Cheers and applause make Ben turn away, looking back to the base. It is obvious that Leia has finished her speech, as the soldiers are raucous, cheering, chanting, screaming and yelling. They are stamping their feet, raising their fists, roaring their emotions and commitment.

“May the Force be with us,” Leia says, her mic'd up voice echoing through the area before shutting off with a static hum.

Luke’s smile is big. “My sister, the speechmaker.”

“The best,” Ben murmurs.

“Oh, yes. It’s a hard life she’s led, but she’s been fantastic at it.”

Ben thinks the same could be said for almost everyone he knows.

He and Luke wait at the jungle’s edge. Ben is sure Leia knows Luke is here, that she has felt his presence in the Force. Luke is a twinkling glow here in the shadows, a warm balm on the back of Ben’s head. If Ben can feel him this surely, then he knows Leia feels Luke with even more certainty. That twin connection…

He thinks of Leia and Luke and Ben and Bail and thinks of the man who binds them together.

“I know you can’t tell me much about the Netherworld,” Ben says, quietly, and Luke looks at him. “But… My father. Is he…?”

“He’s here,” Luke says, quickly. “I haven’t found him, but I’m sure of it.”

Ben frowns. “You haven’t found him?”

“The Netherworld is a big place. And I’m sure your dad’s got a lot of friends to see.”

It’s a nice thought, Ben decides. That Han is busy in the Netherworld, catching up with long dead friends and acquaintances. Ben knows that there is no way for Han to return to the Living Force, to stand in front of Ben as Luke and Anakin have; as a Jedi, that power is beyond Han’s capability.

But Ben wishes, dearly, that he could come. He needs him.

_ “You’ve a good heart, Ben. And it ain’t a weakness.” _

He’s snapped out of his thoughts when he feels Leia approaching.

She’s managed to shake off her ever-present entourage of aides and soldiers, walking to Ben and Luke alone. He wonders how she was able to do that, if she begged off for a moment alone, or something as mundane as a break in a fresher. She looks tired, but gratified, her eyes shining, and Ben is sure she is overwhelmed by a torrent of conflicting emotions. Elation, at a speech well-received. Delight, at the sight of a twin brother. Despair, at what has brought him to her side.

“Luke,” Leia calls, beaming. Luke’s smile matches hers. He holds his hands out, and Leia takes them.

“Leia,” Luke says.

The twins stand there, drinking the other in, and the Force swirls around them, content and warm. It makes Ben  _ ache. _

That ever-present hole in his chest, the crack in his heart his brother tore out, throbs.

Ben slips away.

He half-expects Luke to call him back, offer up another bit of mysterious advice, but he doesn’t. Ben is relieved.

The chaos and loudness of the base has intensified, more ships flying up into the sky. There is less than half an hour until departure, and the mood has turned manic and desperate, a feeling like a predatory animal that is being baited.

Ben spots Poe in the crowd, and goes to him.

“Hey, man,” Poe says. “How are the Jedi getting to Coruscant?”

Ben pauses, thrown. “Um. I assumed we’d be taking the  _ Falcon.” _

Poe nods, unsurprised. “Yeah, I figured. But, uh… Look, I’m gonna be on the  _ Skywalker, _ obviously, but I swear, I’ll guarantee that I’ll get him on the ground on Coruscant, and… Everything is so uncertain, and shit, dangerous, and I just…”

It takes Ben a moment to decipher Poe’s rambling and understand what he is asking.

“If Finn is fine with it,” he murmurs, knowing Finn will certainly be fine with it, “Then he should fly to Coruscant with you.”

It’s a long flight. The prudent thing to do would be to insist the Jedi travel with their Master, for a final bit of meditation and study. A Master of the Old Jedi Order would expect nothing less.

But this is Ben Organa-Solo, and this is the New Jedi Order.

There is more than just compassion. There is empathy, and intimacy, and the knowledge that love does not make you weak, but human.

And the Jedi, whatever else they may have been, could never deny their mortality.

“Thanks, Ben,” Poe says. “And look, if I don’t see you before we leave…”

He jerks forward, crushing Ben in a hug. Ben bends to accommodate him, hugging back just as fiercely.

“Good luck,” Poe murmurs.

“You, too,” Ben replies. “You’ve got this, man. You’ve spent years getting ready. Tomorrow, it won’t just be the Resistance behind you, but the galaxy, too.”

Poe nods, stepping back.

“Right,” he says. “Right.”

Ben is aware they’ve got witnesses, people eager for Poe’s attention, needing him to clarify something or make a choice for the Resistance. It’s a stellar, wonderful reminder of Poe’s value, how admired he is among the rebels, how good he has been as Leia’s right-hand these last five years, how beloved he is to Finn.

Ben can’t figure out how to say any of that.

So instead, he tucks his hands in his pockets, steps back, and walks away.

He glances back once, and sees Poe, back straight, working diligently, answering questions, offering assurances. He is a satellite, a safe harbor in the impending storm. He is the culmination of five years of hard work, and effort, and perseverance. 

With the ships soaring in the sky above him, the ground rumbling with their engines, Ben hoists his rucksack higher up his shoulder, and walks towards the platform where the  _ Millennium Falcon _ awaits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was not thrilled by the implication in TROS that while when Leia called for help and no one answered, everybody and their brother came RUNNING to Lando when he asked. Boo. #TeamLeia
> 
> I feel like I'm really hitting you guys over the head with this Impending Doom stuff. But there's also a lot of important info being shared in these conversations, so. Suffering with reason.
> 
> The "Where do they go?" second bit of "Stars die all the time, Ben" is shared in the very first chapter of AND THE WORLD WILL BE BETTER FOR THIS.
> 
> In this AU, Leia's flagship cruiser is called the Skywalker. I think that's nice.


	15. Let The Stars Watch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t want to die!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mood music for the last scene: ["Eavesdrop"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wW-0N347Y0) by The Civil Wars. [Chapter title from that song too.]

Rey decides to help the Resistance in ensuring that should the worst happen and they lose the battle of Coruscant tomorrow that the First Order will not be able to glean much relevant and helpful information from the base of Ajan Kloss, by destroying original documents. What this really means is Rey is getting some of her pent-up anger and fear out by smashing data drives and documents with a hammer.

It feels really, _really_ good.

She’s in the middle of a very satisfying crushing of a drive containing information regarding spies in the Arkanis Sector, when she realizes her fellow destroying rebels have quieted.

Rey looks up.

Leia stands in the doorway, hands on either side of it. Rey would have expected her to change clothes by now, something more regal than the plain jumpsuit she’s wearing, but perhaps the time for that is later.

“Just checking in,” Leia says, smiling at the rebels. Her eyes fall on Rey last. “Rey… A moment?”

Rey nods, getting to her feet. She hands the hammer off, and follows Leia into the hall. Soldiers all stop and jump to attention when Leia passes, but she only waves her hand, encouraging them to stand down and continue their work. It strikes Rey then that Ben is often greeted like Leia is; he is constantly meeting people who behave differently when they see his face, recognizing him as either the Master of the New Jedi Order or the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Either way inspires respect, awe, and fear. Three things that Rey is sure would describe Leia Organa, too.

She can’t help but shuffle behind Leia, rather than walk beside her.

 _But I will,_ Rey thinks. _As a Master, I will have to--_

It takes her far too long to realize that Leia has led her into her private quarters.

The room isn’t very big, only a bit bigger than the room Rey and Ben share. Leia has a bed, impeccably made, a table with a large mirror placed on top of it, a wardrobe, and a desk. Uniforms, dresses, and other clothes are bursting at the seams of the wardrobe, while the desk, though it appears to be littered with datapads and maps, is clearly actually organized, with notes stuck on the surface of everything in Leia’s immaculate handwriting.

“Commander-in-Chief,” Rey starts, and Leia rolls her eyes.

“For the last time, Rey, in here, it’s Leia.”

“Right. Leia.”

Rey usually tries to call Leia by her title rather than her first name. Though she has better reason than most to call the Commander-in-Chief Leia--Rey is going to marry Leia’s son--it would make Rey feel a little weird to call her by a name that hardly anyone else does. Ben struggles similarly with this, vacillating between _Commander-in-Chief_ and _Mom._

Leia peels a sweater off the small stool in front of her table, and pats the empty space.

Rey smiles, recognizing the set-up, and sits down.

“You really want to braid my hair?” she asks. “Now?”

This is where Leia takes her when she decides she wants to braid Rey’s hair. Her room is the place she is least likely to be disturbed, since only Poe, Kaydel, and Ben really have the authority to bother her here, save for any absolutely critical emergency.

Rey has long known Leia enjoys braiding her hair. She suspects it gives Leia time to puzzle out issues as she arranges Rey’s plain hair into elaborate knots and plaits, that it is a kind of calming activity for Leia to do when she feels particularly stressed. But they are minutes away from what could very well be a final departure from Ajan Kloss, and it doesn’t seem wise to Rey to spend time on this.

But Leia is undeterred.

“I do,” she says. “You need a style fit for the moment.”

Rey helps Leia brush her hair out, wincing a little when their fingers catch on straggles. She hasn’t been as diligent in haircare lately, what with everything else going on. She is sure this is obvious to Leia, haircare expert, but Leia is too polite to comment on it.

“So,” Leia says. “I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

Rey shrugs as best as she can while keeping her head still. “Fine. Anxious.”

“Mm. That’s certainly the impression Luke got.”

Rey can’t help it; she scowls. Leia smiles at her in the mirror.

“My brother’s time in the Netherworld has not made him any less likely to rile you up, I see,” Leia says. “I hope you believe me when I say that he means well.”

“I know,” Rey murmurs.

“I understand Luke reminded you of his third lesson.”

Rey and Leia had both been the recipients of that third lesson. Luke had told both of them _No one’s ever really gone_ while in the base on Crait. He had offered the words to Leia as he’d given her a phantom image of Han Solo’s beloved gold dice, a die he’d given to each of his two sons. Ben still wears his; where Kylo’s has gone is anyone’s guess.

“I don’t think I needed the reminder,” Rey says. 

“No,” Leia agrees. “I don’t think you do.”

Leia has arranged Rey’s hair into separate, thick braids. She’s currently twining them around the back of Rey’s head.

“You and I know better than most what can happen tomorrow,” Leia says. “We know what is at stake for Ben. We know that, in many ways, he cannot really _win_ tomorrow. He can die. Or, he can survive, and have to spend the rest of his life living with the murder of his twin.”

It sounds so dismal when Leia puts it that way.

“I told you, once,” Leia continues, her eyes downcast, focusing on Rey’s hair, “That should Ben fall to the Dark Side with his brother, I would need _you_ to go to Luke, and train to become a Jedi. Even though Ben didn’t fall--and at this point, I don’t think he will--I wanted to make it clear to you how grateful I am that you chose to follow the call of the Force. I am… I am so proud of you, Rey.”

Rey bites her lip.

Like Finn is the closest thing she has ever had to a brother, Leia is the closest thing she has ever had to a mother. Or, at least, a known mother. But no mother that abandoned her could ever match up to the kindness and love Leia has bestowed on Rey these last five years.

“Not only will the New Jedi Order always have a place in the Resistance, and in whatever government the Resistance is able to start up after the war,” Leia says, “But _you_ will always have a place. In this family. With me. No matter what happens to Ben tomorrow.”

Rey feels her eyes fill up, so Leia’s reflection in the mirror becomes blurred. She watches as the older woman pats her hair down, and steps back.

“Done,” she declares.

She has styled Rey’s hair with a style Rey has not seen before. Two clumps of braids rest at the back of Rey’s head, while a thicker braid runs over the top of her head, connecting them together. Rey twists her head side to side, getting every angle she can from the mirror.

“This is new,” Rey comments. Her voice is still thick with emotion over Leia’s assurances.

“An older style,” Leia says.

“What does it mean?”

“Nothing, really.” At Rey’s bemused look, Leia adds, “I wore my hair in this style for the Battle of Endor. No particular reason for it at the time. But I am hoping now that the Resistance might… Experience a similar result, as the Alliance did then.”

“A good luck charm,” Rey says, running her fingers over the braids.

“We’ll see.”

Rey stands. She reaches out, and takes Leia’s hands in hers.

“Thank you,” Rey whispers.

Leia pats her hand. 

“It’ll be okay,” she says.

* * *

Ben is extremely unsurprised to reach the _Millennium Falcon_ and spot Chewbacca on top of the ship, swinging his legs, a welding torch in hand and goggles over his eyes as he solders a panel or something else in place.

“Chewie!” Ben yells. He isn’t convinced Chewie will be able to hear him over the chaos of the base, but the Wookiee’s hearing must be better than he thinks, as Chewie looks up, and issues a roar of greeting.

Ben climbs up the entrance ramp. The ship’s cache of explosives, blasters, outer clothes, and radio equipment has been raided, a few floorboards still popped up. Ben gets to work on putting these panels back into place. He pauses in the middle of the main hold, peering down into the empty space, wires and pipes and gauges under his feet.

_They’re both young, younger than him, with oxygen masks covering half their faces, just under their similar brown eyes. The boy’s skin is black and slightly sweaty, black hair cut short, shoulders and arms covered by a leather jacket that is vaguely familiar to Ben. Crouched next to him is a girl, brown hair tied back in an odd three-bun style, pale skin flushed, hands tense around a couple pipes, clearly caught in the act of doing something catastrophic._

_For a moment, he can only stare._

_The girl; she shines._

Ben shrugs off the memory, slamming the compartment cover back into place.

He gets to his feet as Chewie appears, sliding down the ladder leading to the roof.

“I see we’ve been cleaned out,” Ben says.

 _“The_ Falcon _is part of the aerial assault,”_ Chewie says. _“We have no need for weapons and equipment that can only be used on the ground. I assume your mother gave the order to pick us clean.”_

“Hm,” Ben says, nodding. “Who’s your crew? Maz?”

Chewie snorts. _“She decided she wanted to be part of the action on the ground.”_

“Okay… Then who--”

“Hey, kid!”

Ben laughs, turning, in time to see Lando appear on the entrance ramp. Lando is dressed rather slovenly today, in plain steel gray trousers and a blue and white striped shirt. He tosses his bag aside with aplomb, marching to Ben and hugging him.

“Who else,” Ben says, shaking his head.

“Hell, what’s a galactic battle if there isn’t a Solo or Calrissian piloting the _Millennium Falcon?”_ Lando asks. “I figured you’d be on the ground with the Jedi. Thought I’d step up as an alternate pilot. That okay, Captain?”

“Of course,” Ben says, warmly. “Chewie?”

_“I suppose he’ll do.”_

“Rascal,” Lando says, but there is no animosity. Only friendliness, and camaraderie.

It is an environment Ben adores. One he grew up in, in this very ship.

He follows Lando and Chewie into the cockpit, standing between the pilot and co-pilot’s seats as they sit down.

“Finn is hitching a ride on the _Skywalker,”_ Ben says. “I haven’t spoken to Jannah yet. She’ll probably either be on that ship or this one. But Rey will join us for sure.”

 _“Naturally,”_ Chewie says. He’s surveying the routes the _Falcon’s_ nav computer has compiled to take them to Coruscant.

“Celanon Spur’s our best bet,” Lando says.

 _“No way,”_ Chewie replies. _“The Entana Run to the Entralla Route--”_

“You want to get to Coruscant via Ord Cantrell? You’d be going the wrong way, Wookiee--”

_“Well, you’d be putting us next to Ithor--”_

“What’s wrong with Ithor?”

“Burna Trade Route, then Entana Run, then Celanon Spur,” Ben says, and the two others look at him. “No one in Urce Space gives a damn about a sudden, large number of ships passing through their region. It’s the safest bet. Probably the most expeditious as well.”

Lando and Chewie exchange a look.

“I guess,” Lando says. 

Chewie shrugs. _“Fine. But none of that backseat piloting when we’re flying.”_

Ben laughs. “Fine by me.”

Leaving Lando and Chewie to talk, Ben exits the cockpit. He walks back through the _Falcon,_ returning to the entrance ramp, and emerges into the darkness in time to see Rey, Rose, and Leia approach the ship.

Rose immediately drops Rey’s arm, breaking into a run. Ben grins, and bends his knees a little, to catch her as she launches herself at him, lifting her clean off the ground.

“You’ve got this, Ben,” Rose declares, her voice in Ben’s ear.

“You too,” Ben says, smiling. “See you on the ground?”

“Yep. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

He carefully sets her down, pressing a kiss to her cheek as he does.

“Do me a favor,” Ben says. “And stay away from any glowing staffs you see.”

Rose nods. “Yeah, I can do that.”

She hurries away, disappearing back into the base. Rey walks forward.

“Jannah’s flying on the _Skywalker_ with Finn,” she says. Ben had known Rey would have already checked with her apprentice before going to her own ship, but he smiles at her proactiveness anyways. “Is the crew in there?”

“Yeah,” Ben replies. “We were just waiting for you.”

Rey nods. She hugs Leia, bending slightly to do so. Ben watches as Leia wraps her up tightly, gently cupping the back of Rey’s head in her hand. It’s a beautiful image, one he feels grateful to see, these two women he loves more than any others in the galaxy.

They break apart, and Rey slips past him, disappearing into the _Falcon,_ leaving Ben and Leia to look at each other.

Leia has her hands clasped neatly in front of her. She looks at Ben, her eyes roving up and down, taking him in. He stands still, and gazes back at her, and he thinks that this might be enough.

She breaks first, crossing to him, and wrapping her arms around his waist. He curls his spine to fit around her, pressing his nose into her hair. She smells like salt water, memory, and lilac, and he takes deep breaths of her. Something to have and remember for the day ahead.

“I’m so proud of you, Ben,” Leia murmurs.

“Me, too,” Ben replies. “I’m proud of you too.”

He can feel her smile against his shirt, before she pulls away, peering up at him.

“I told your father, the last time I saw him,” Leia says, and Ben’s heart skips a beat, though he shouldn’t be surprised. Of course she is thinking about Han today. She’ll likely think of him often for the foreseeable future, more so than normal. “To bring our sons home. We weren’t… He knew there was a chance that the only way he could bring you home was in a body bag. And Bail… Well. That one we weren’t sure about at all. But I thought, maybe, all Bail needed was to see his father again. Maybe he needed to hear Han tell him that we missed him, and wanted him back.”

Ben can still see it so clearly, though he saw it from a great distance. The darkness of Starkiller Base. The abyss above the narrow catwalk. The man in the mask and the father who called his name.

“And Han _tried,”_ Leia murmurs. “He was always so good about that, Ben. Trying. He put in the effort. I always appreciated that about him. But Bail did not come home. And then Rey tried, and Luke tried, and even when you tried… Bail did not come home.”

In the glen on Takodana, Ben stared at Kylo Ren, a masked man in black who looked about what he’d expected a Dark Side apprentice of the Voice to look like.

_“It’s you and me, now. I want to stand beside my brother again, Bail.”_

Leia’s eyes are dark and deep. They are Ben’s eyes. And Bail’s.

“What I am striving to get at,” Leia says, “is that I don’t want you to try anymore.”

He can’t imagine the pain she must be experiencing by even saying those words. Ben himself has come to accept it, to understand that confronting his brother will only end with one of them left standing. But it is another thing to know Leia, their mother, the woman who carried them and gave birth to them, has come to accept this as well.

Ben is filled with gratitude towards Luke, for whatever Luke may have said to her, to help her get to this stage.

“If it comes down to your choice,” Leia whispers. “I want you to be the one who comes home to me. And I want you to feel no guilt for that decision.”

“Forgive myself for it,” Ben murmurs.

_Snoke, the Voice, staring down at him, a holographic horror: “What is it you want, Ben?”_

_“I want,” Ben says, “To be able to forgive my choices.”_

Leia nods. “Yes. More than anything.”

She reaches up, brushing her hands through his short hair.

“My sensitive boy,” Leia murmurs. “My strong, kind son. My best hope.”

He leans down, and kisses her forehead.

“I think I’ve set it up right, but you’ll need to check,” he says, speaking quickly. “Please make sure my inheritance goes to Rey. And Chewie should get to keep the _Falcon,_ or I guess he can fight Lando over it. I have a really nice Mandalorian-made toolkit that I know Rose has been eyeing, so she should get it, and then for Jannah’s birthday, there’s a--”

“No,” Leia says, firmly, shaking her head. “None of that.”

Ben shrugs. “Just putting it out there. I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too,” Leia replies. “Be brave, Ben.”

_“Stars die all the time, Ben.”_

“May the Force be with you,” Ben tells her.

She nods. “You, too.”

They do not say goodbye. Instead, they turn in unison, walking away from the other, and neither of them looks back.

* * *

Rey claims the bunk room for her and Ben, knowing Lando will assume the Captain’s quarters, and Chewie’s preferred sleeping spot is the awkward bunk above the long bench in the main hold. She doesn’t anticipate getting much sleep during the long flight to Coruscant, but a place to sit in quiet and meditate is not a bad thing.

She hears the sound of the entrance ramp closing, and hurries out of the room.

Ben stands in the hall, his palm still pressed to the button. He stands completely still, eyes unfocused. Rey approaches him slowly.

“Ben?”

He snaps out of it, eyes landing on her. “Rey. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Rey says. “Are you okay?”

“Mm.” His fingers tap an irregular rhythm against the wall. “I’ve just said goodbye to my mother.”

“I gathered as much.”

He gives a helpless little shrug. “I can’t stop thinking that it might be the last time I’ll see her.”

Anger, pure and seething, settles in Rey’s sternum. People--Ben, Luke, Leia--keep reminding her of her long ago Force vision, that Ben’s death could be just around the corner, that she needs to be ready. It was never something she found _pleasing,_ these reminders, but the frequency and tone of near certainty that’s been escalating is grating on her. She opens her mouth, ready to snap, when she spots Ben rubbing a hand almost absent mindlessly against his left side.

“How is it healing?” Rey asks.

It’s the wound from the shot from Jannah’s energy bow that’s hurting him. Rey had been unconscious during the immediate aftermath of the incident in the kitchen nook, but Finn had filled her in, explaining that the medics had immediately stabilized Ben, stopping the bleeding, before his body was pulled out of the room and into an empty interrogation space.

“Fine,” Ben says. “It’s mostly just bruised now. Jannah took a look at it earlier, sped the healing process along a bit.”

Rey smiles. “She’s getting really good at Force healing.”

“She is. We need to stop giving her so many learning opportunities.”

Rey snorts a laugh. Ben takes her hand, pulling her with him to the cockpit.

Lando and Chewie are inside, expertly preparing the _Falcon_ for takeoff. Outside the transparisteel viewport, a literal army of ships is flying out of the jungle, one after another. The ships vary wildly in size, from frigates and cruisers to corvettes and starfighters.

“The _Skywalker_ is about to take off,” Lando says, pressing one finger to the headset against his ear. Rey and Ben settle into the two seats behind him and Chewie.

The _Skywalker,_ Leia’s MC80 Star Cruiser and flagship, christened some two years earlier, bought fresh off the assembly line with the Resistance’s hard-scrounged credits. Once the _Skywalker_ leaves Ajan Kloss, every ship will hasten to follow.

“Let’s see if we can beat her to Coruscant, shall we?” Ben asks, slyly.

Chewie nickers a laugh, turning in his seat to give Ben an approving sort of look. He catches sight of Rey.

 _“Your hair, Rey-_ jow,” Chewie says. _“You look like Leia.”_

Lando spins around to stare.

Rey feels her face flushing.

Ben looks pained. “Don’t say that, Chewie.”

Rey clears her throat. In her best mimicry of Leia’s subtle Alderaanian accent, its realism improved by her still hoarse voice, she says, “This ship is garbage! There is simply no way it can out fly a top-of-the-line Resistance cruiser--”

She is forced to break off, as Ben has leaned forward, covering her mouth with his hand.

 _“Stop,”_ he says, but he’s laughing. “I hate it.”

“That was pretty good,” Lando says. “Too borderline incestuous for you, Ben?”

 _“I still remember that time Leia kissed Luke on Hoth,”_ Chewie says.

“I should’ve gotten a ride with Rose,” Ben mutters. “I have no friends here.”

Rey laughs, and laughs.

They take off, the _Falcon_ joining the throng angling up, to the stars. Rey does her best to peer around Chewie’s considerable bulk, to get a last glimpse of the base; but between the Wookiee’s fur and the jungle covering, there isn’t much to see. Then again, the base would be practically empty at this point, devoid of soldiers.

“Who’s Artoo flying with?” Rey wonders.

“Wedge, probably,” Ben says, and Rey supposes that isn’t surprising.

They break through the atmosphere, revealing a mass of ships and the gas giant Ajara, a daunting shadow over them all. As Rey watches, the ships begin to jump forward, streaking away in blurs of blue lines, leaving only stardust and neon light behind.

Ben reaches out, and takes Rey’s hand.

“Let’s rock and roll,” Lando says, and he pushes the lever for the hyperdrive, and they leap forward, spiraling into the stars after the fleet, Ajan Kloss left behind in their tracks.

The four of them sit in silence for a bit, watching the blur of hyperspace in front of them, listening to the familiar rumble of the _Millennium Falcon._ Rey leans back, letting herself feel the ancient patchy leather of the seat under her, the flickering lights of various controls at the corners of her eyes, the comforting scent of oil and rusted metal. She glances to her side, and sees Ben. He has his head tipped back, eyes closed, his throat rising and falling evenly as he breathes, a small smile on his face.

“We’re on pace to reach Coruscant in twenty standard hours,” Lando says, checking the nav computer and chronometer. “If anyone needs a sleep aid… I’ve got liquor and doze tablets, and I’m not cheap with either one.”

Ben laughs, opening his eyes.

“In a little bit,” he says. “Is anyone hungry?”

“Yes,” Rey says, automatically, as she always does. It is a long-ingrained instinct she has yet to push down. Part of her will always be starving.

They leave the cockpit, walking through the main hold of the ship to the galley. Ben starts digging in cupboards.

“Kriff, Lando wasn’t kidding,” Ben grumbles. Rey peers around his shoulder, and counts at least ten bottles of liquor in the cabinet.

It becomes obvious to Rey that Ben isn’t hungry, not really, and so she settles for a bowl of Shuura and Desert plums, carrying the bowl out of the galley and back to the main hold. She sits down on the long bench, using the Dejarik board as her table. Ben sits next to her and starts to peel the fruit with a paring knife.

“Is there anything you want to go over?” he asks. “Any Force abilities you need to work on, or lightsaber Forms to perfect?”

Rey shrugs, biting into a Shuura. “I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

Ben nods. He looks up, at the space in front of them, the communications station on the other side of the room. As Rey watches, a frown appears on his face. He sets his paring knife on the table, and gets to his feet, wiping his hands clean on his thighs as he stands.

“Ben?” Rey prompts.

She watches him cross the room, and drops into a crouch next to the communications station. He rummages under it for a moment, before retrieving a plain storage bin, tugging it out. He leans in, and grins.

“I completely forgot this was in here,” Ben says, and pulls out a small round droid. He presses a button on its side, and it soars into the air, moving stiffly, turning up and down, seemingly searching for something.

“What--” Rey starts, and then shrieks, as the droid fires a small orange laser at her. She moves instinctively, raising her hand, stopping the laser before it can hit her. _“Oi!”_

Ben _cackles._

“It’s a Marksman-H training remote,” Ben explains. “A very, very old model. Obi-Wan Kenobi gave it to Luke to train with, practically the first time he ever picked up a lightsaber. _Anakin’s_ old lightsaber.”

 _My lightsaber,_ Rey thinks, automatically, picturing the broken crystal in her own sword. She doesn’t say it aloud; she needs to focus on the hovering droid. It twists in the air, swiveling back and forth, and this time it fires a shot at Ben, who deflects the laser with an almost lazy wave of his hand.

“You’re supposed to just… deflect lasers with it?” Rey asks.

“Yeah,” Ben says. “The Old Jedi used them regularly with padawans, I expect. It has different settings, from a stinging shot to a lethal shot, though I can’t imagine encouraging a padawan to practice with a lethal shooting droid. Luke eventually invested in a nicer, more modern version of the Marksman-H when he opened his Temple, and this one just… stayed in the _Falcon._ I brought it out for you to use on Ahch-To, but it quickly became clear to me you were too advanced to get anything out of it.”

“Did you train with it?” 

Ben smirks. “Yeah. Dad got a real kick out of watching Bail and me get zapped by it. But whenever we saw him laughing at us, one of us would run over and stand right next to him, and he’d usually get hit too. I learned a lot of my favorite swear words during those moments.”

Rey laughs, picturing it.

Ben calls the droid back to him, switching it off. He twirls it around in his hands for a moment, smiling at it, before shrugging.

“Anyway,” he says. “That just reminded me--”

And then he stops.

Rey pauses, half-eaten slice of Desert plum in her hand.

It’s like Ben has frozen. His entire body has stilled, the droid still clutched in his hands, his shoulders half-up in a shrug. His eyes are unfocused, looking at the dirty metal floor of the _Falcon._ Rey isn’t sure he’s breathing.

“Ben?” Rey asks, putting the fruit down.

Her other hand reaches forward, and clutches the paring knife.

Ben takes a long, gasping breath, like he’s suddenly emerged from a deep dive underwater. 

Bail looks at her.

 _“Chewie!”_ Rey screams. She moves instinctively, leaping to her feet. She lifts the paring knife, while her other hand takes up her lightsaber, igniting one of the green blades.

Bail gasps. Rey blinks, and Ben is back. He drops the droid, and it clatters loudly to the hard floor. His eyes turn wild, focusing on Rey.

“Ben,” Rey breathes. “Ben, look at me!”

It’s like flicking through the pages of a Jedi text at rapid speed, when you know which page you’re looking for but can’t quite remember how far into the text it is, so you flip through all the pages until you reach the one you recognize. Ben and Bail are changing places just as quickly, Ben disappearing and reappearing faster than Rey can blink, Bail emerging in the tiny gaps between.

Chewie comes tearing around the corner, Lando trailing him. While Chewie has his bowcaster lifted and charged, Lando is unarmed. He stares, bewildered, between Rey, Ben, and Chewie, taking in the sight of Rey and Chewie seemingly prepared to attack Ben.

“The hell is this?” Lando asks.

There is no time to explain.

“Ben,” Rey says. “Ben, _focus._ Come back. Come back to me.”

“N-No,” Ben stutters, and before Rey can panic, she realizes that Ben is not talking to her. 

His eyes are still unfocused. One hand is pressed to his chest, over his heart. He’s panting, teeth digging into his lip, fighting a force Rey cannot see or feel.

“N-No,” Ben repeats, the word closer to a snarl now. _“No._ Not… N-Now. Get… Get _out,_ B-Bail.”

Ben groans. He drops to his knees, the hand not clutching for his heart snagging the side of the communications station, clinging to the metal. He shakes his head, closing his eyes tightly.

“Out, _out,”_ Ben moans, shaking his head. “I don’t… want…”

“Ben,” Rey whispers. She lowers the knife, setting it on the Dejarik table. With her lightsaber still lit, she takes a step towards him.

 _“Rey,”_ Chewie calls, warningly.

Ben has started to rock back and forth. His eyes are still shut, his face twisted, like he’s in pain.

Rey kneels down in front of him, holding her lightsaber out perpendicular to her body. She wonders if he can see the emerald light through his eyelids.

“Ben,” Rey murmurs. “Ben, _fight him._ Open your eyes, my love. Be with me.”

Slowly, like it is physically paining him to do so, Ben opens his eyes. They’re flickering rapidly side to side, like a small tic, like he’s experiencing a seizure. Rey’s heart breaks at how much he’s struggling, how hard he’s fighting.

Rey extinguishes her lightsaber. Before she can second guess it, she reaches forward, and covers the hand he has pressed to his chest.

Ben gasps.

“Be with me,” Rey repeats.

She takes deep, even breaths. She remembers how Ben asked her to ground him when he brought Leia into his mind after Starkiller Base, to remind him of where he was when the memory of his brother in his head was so near. She gripped his shoulder then, and kept him with her. She tries to do the same thing now.

Ben starts to nod.

He breaks away from her, bending forward, and Rey hurriedly shuffles back, ready to reignite her blade. She isn’t even sure what she would do with it, should Ben fail to fight off the switch with Bail; she can’t hurt Ben, not like this, not now. She can feel Chewie at her back, ready to shoot Ben, consequences be damned, if he thinks Rey will get hurt. She desperately hopes he won’t have to choose between her and Ben.

 _“Get out,”_ Ben spits, and he is snarling now, sounding more furious than Rey has heard him before. His eyes are wide open, his hands planted on the floor. “You don’t get to be here. You’ve taken _enough_ from me.”

Rey stares at his hands.

They are highlighted in yellow light. She can feel the heat wafting off them.

“Ben,” Rey whispers, stunned.

Ben grits his teeth. His eyes are wild, almost feral-looking.

A moment later, he gasps, rearing back. The glow recedes from his hands. He blinks, calmness and sanity returning to him. His breaths are coming in pants, like he’s run a mile in the last few minutes.

“Ben?” Rey prompts.

“Yeah,” Ben murmurs. “Yeah, it’s me. He’s gone.”

Ben leans back, running a hand over his face. His hand is trembling slightly.

“What the _hell,”_ Lando snaps, “was _that?”_

“That looked so violent,” Rey says.

“Guess I shouldn’t try fighting the switch,” Ben mutters.

Rey shakes her head. “No. I’m glad you did.”

“I won’t have to deal with this much longer, at least,” he comments. “He dies, or I die. It stops either way.”

Rey blinks.

And then she _loses it._

* * *

Ben has seen Rey angry before.

He’s been known to cause her anger. A few times, he’s cleaned their room, and thrown away something he thought was trash but was actually something Rey had been saving for a yet-to-be determined purpose. Other times, he’s offered an opinion on the ways of the Old Jedi Order that Rey has disagreed with, and they argued over it. Occasionally, he’s improperly fixed a bit of tech and made it worse, and Rey has to fix it all over again.

These moments flash before his eyes as Rey gets to her feet, and _glares_ down at him.

 _“Fuck off,”_ she snarls.

Ben blinks. Rey is not one to swear casually; when she does swear, she really means it.

“What?” he says, dumbly.

Chewie and Lando have both frozen, staring. Lando looks like he was recently hit over the head with a hammer, and Ben can’t blame him. He must’ve looked like a crazy person, writhing on the floor, seemingly yelling at himself.

“I am so _sick,”_ Rey spits, “of people acting like you are _already dead,_ because you are _not,_ and we don’t know _for sure_ that you are going to die because the kriffing Force--the _Force--_ is not always literal and it is not an infallible predictor of the future! But the way that you and Leia and Luke and Finn have been talking to me makes me think that there is _nothing_ I can do, that you are just going to _die!_ And I _refuse.”_

“Rey,” Ben says, softly. He rises to his feet, holding his hands out, like he’s approaching a wild creature.

“You do _not_ have to die tomorrow, Ben!” Rey yells, and he’s never heard her this angry before. “You keep acting like it’s set in stone, like there is nothing that can be done, and I cannot… I can’t deal with it! All of your _shit,_ talking about how I’ll have to do this, and that, because you’re going to be _dead,_ and I need to start thinking about that, when it feels like all I have done for five years is _think about how you are going to die!”_

Distantly, Ben is aware of Chewie and Lando stepping back, moving in silent unison back to the cockpit. He keeps his eyes on Rey.

“Rey,” Ben tries. “Rey, honey--”

“Shut _up,”_ she spits. “I should never have told you what I saw. You are acting like it was a confirmation of your death, when it was _never_ that, but only a possibility! We have seen so many possibilities, and we have seen almost all of them _not happen._ You never became Kylo Ren, and Bail didn’t return to the Light, and I won’t ever be picking up that Sith sword--”

 _What?_ Ben thinks, bewildered, but knows it is in his best interests not to interrupt.

“So why can’t _this_ Force vision be just another possibility?” Rey demands. “Why do we have to treat it as inevitable?”

 _Rey,_ Ben thinks, _has been waiting a long time to say these words._

“I just…” he sighs. “I want you to be prepared.”

“There is no kriffing way to prepare, Ben!” Rey yells. “How can you… Are you actually _mad?_ How the hell could anyone prepare for the death of someone they love, someone they--”

She breaks off, pressing her hand to her mouth. Her eyes are studded with tears.

Ben’s heart drops.

“You just… You’ve never had someone you love die,” Ben says. “Your parents abandoned you, but you never saw them die. And I… I have, and if there’s a way I can… Prepare you, or lessen your grief, even a little bit, then I’m going to try. I have _been_ trying.”

“Well I wish you wouldn’t,” Rey spits. “Because so far, to me, it’s like you’ve given up.”

She turns on her heel, and walks away, disappearing down the hall.

Ben stares after her.

And then he’s moving, chasing after her.

She’s gone to the bunk room, intending to lock herself away and cry out some of her sorrow and anger, he expects. He marches straight to the door, and darts inside it before Rey can slide it closed. Instead, the door closes behind him, and the two of them stand in the room, staring at the other in fury.

Because now Ben is angry, too.

“Don’t,” he snaps. “Don’t say I’ve _given up.”_

Rey’s eyes narrow. “Then stop acting like you have! You keep talking about how I need to decide on a _recall location,_ how important it was for me to attend all those High Command meetings, how you think you’ve just seen your mother for the last time! You wrote a kriffing _farewell letter_ to Temiri, you keep spouting some lovely sentiments about how you’ll always be with me, everyone keeps telling me _No one’s ever really gone,_ which is nice, except it kind of feels like you already are!”

“That doesn’t mean I’ve given up! It just means I am being realistic--”

 _“Realistic_ is sending the texts to Temiri, but without a goodbye note,” Rey snaps. _“Realistic_ is talking about how _we,_ you and I, will return to Ajan Kloss, because it can definitely happen! _Realistic_ is noting how Luke appearing to us is normal for Jedi preparing for a huge battle and not a cosmic omen of impending death!”

“Look, it’s not easy, but I just think--”

“Once, just _once,”_ Rey snarls, “I’d like us to have a conversation about tomorrow that does not make me think there is nothing I can do, that we are going to get there and you’ll just _die,_ you’ll just drop dead, and I’ll be standing there like, like… Kriff, Ben, it’s almost like Luke and Leia and you are all willing it to happen, like you want--”

_“I don’t want to die!”_

Ben yells this, loudly, and is almost surprised by his own voice, how furious it is, how pained. Rey stills, and stares at him.

“Don’t you _dare,”_ Ben hisses. “Don’t you dare think I want to die. Because I don’t. I don’t… Not anymore.”

Rey’s breath catches. Ben looks at her, her wide brown eyes, speckled intermittently with green, the curve of her cheek, the smoothness of her skin. She is so beautiful, and so kind, and so afraid.

“I don’t want to die,” Ben repeats. “I… I love my life. I’m thirty years old, and for the first time, really, I love my life. I love the relationship I have with my mother; it took us a bit of time and conversation to get here, but I feel like I really understand her, and vice versa. I love that I get to spend so much time with Chewie, and the _Falcon._ I love hanging out with Poe and Rose. I love working and training with Finn and Jannah, and seeing them grow and evolve and become incredible Jedi, and incredible people. And I love you, I love watching you eat and meditate, and I love your laugh, and I just…”

Tears are sliding down Rey’s face. He lifts his hand, pressing them to her cheeks, brushing her tears with his thumbs.

“I don’t want to die, Rey,” Ben whispers, for the third time. “I need you to understand that. I spent the first half of my twenties, I spent _six years,_ wishing for death. I wanted to die so badly. Sometimes, I thought… I thought the pain, my grief, I thought it’d kill me, and I was so glad for it. And now… I haven’t felt that way for a long time.”

“I’m sorry,” Rey says. “I’m so sorry, Ben, I didn’t mean--”

“I know,” Ben says, nodding. “I know. I only… I _hate_ thinking that you might believe I am okay with dying, that I am ready to die. Because I’m not, Rey. I’m really not.”

He leans back on the closed door, suddenly unable to remain standing straight. She stretches up on her toes, to press her forehead to his.

“Are you scared?”

“Of death? No. Of dying? … A little, since it probably hurts. Of leaving you? Absolutely.”

“Me, too,” Rey says, softly. Her breath smells like Desert plums.

Because he can, because he _still_ can, because he wants to: He leans forward, and kisses her. While the kiss starts out gentle, it quickly turns aggressive and passionate.

Ben spins on the spot, so it is Rey who is pressed against the door. She gives back as good as she gets, her hands flying up to land in his hair, which reminds him that the worst thing about cutting his hair short has been how it prevents Rey from pulling his hair while they’re making out or having sex, and he’s never regretted it more. He reaches down, hands roving everywhere, because he can’t decide which place on her body he is most desperate to touch.

 _No time, no time, no time,_ his brain shouts at him, and Ben wishes, viciously, it would just _shut up._

He works one of his thighs in between her legs, and she gasps, her breath curling near his ear, and he would do a lot to hear that noise. He shoves her higher up against the door, and her arms curl around his shoulders, like it is all she can do to hang on, to cling.

He is not normally this forceful with her; it isn’t something that comes naturally to him, with his carefulness, his fear, his anxiety.

But he is full of anger and frustration and pain, and he can’t handle it.

He leans back, and Rey gasps, staring at him. Her eyes are very wide, pupils blown, face red. He stares back at her, memorizing her face.

“Take off your clothes,” he whispers.

The bunk room has always been small, and relatively uncomfortable. It’s designed to be a place for the crew of the _Falcon_ to sleep, to catch a few hours of rest in between lightspeed jumps. It’s never been a nice room.

But now Rey is standing there, tearing off her clothes, and it is suddenly an _amazing_ room. He watches, almost embarrassingly stunned, as Rey taking off her clothes in front of him hasn’t been an uncommon sight in the last five years. But there is something about now, about this time, that makes him feel like it’s the first time.

Now completely naked, Rey stills, and raises an eyebrow at him.

“I’m waiting,” she says, and they can’t have that.

He pulls his shirt over his head. He can hear Rey moving around, and when he looks again, he sees she’s pulled the ancient, spindly twin mattresses off the two bottom bunks and thrown them on the floor.

“Proactive,” Ben comments, working on his boots.

“This floor is disgusting,” Rey says, and he laughs. “And _cold._ And while I’d normally get a kick out of you whacking your head by underestimating the height of a bunk, I’d really rather not get distracted right now.”

He understands.

Rey shrieks, giggling, when he tackles her to the makeshift bed. He runs his hand over her face, brushing the errant strands of hair, fallen out of the tight braids done by Leia, out of her eyes.

“Hi,” Ben whispers.

She smiles. “Hi.”

It is the easiest thing in the galaxy to kiss her, to grab her thigh in his hand, to press every part of himself against her. And yet, it feels like a blessing, like something he will never be able to bear, like something he will have to give back on a cosmic level. He doesn’t know what the price of this kind of sublime happiness is, but knows he would pay it back, pay for it in blood and teeth and whatever else it demands, if only for one more moment of time.

“You’re okay,” Rey breathes, and Ben frowns, dazed, and realizes he’s been biting at her, biting at her collarbones and breasts, and his hands are surely brushing the line of pain rather than pleasure. He looks up, catching her eyes. He wonders if he looks as undone and wild as he feels, as he has been. “We’re okay, Ben.”

He thinks she means more than just him and her in this single moment. He thinks she means _them,_ this idea of _them,_ this idea of Ben and Rey. This love story of a Crown Prince of a dead planet and an orphan of a wasteland, a cargo hauler and desert scavenger, a Jedi Knight and an apprentice, a Jedi Master and a Knight, a man with too many names and a woman with none.

“Look at me,” Ben says, and she focuses in on him as he moves again.

He listens as her breaths turn to pants, as she keens, pressing her head back into the flimsy mattress under her. This puts his face very close to her neck, and slowly, with clear purpose, he presses the tips of his fingers to a tendon there.

Rey freezes under him. He understands why. He understands she cannot help but think about the last time he touched her neck.

Giving her time to accept his touch, he brushes his nose over her neck, and kisses the other side, drumming his fingers gently against the skin of her throat.

“Are you afraid?” he asks, quietly.

Rey swallows, hard. He watches the muscles of her throat move. But she speaks clearly, with no stutter: “No.”

 _No._ So firm, so sure.

“Am I making you uncomfortable, then?” Ben asks.

“No,” Rey says, just as calmly.

He leans back, to look her in the eyes. “Why not?”

“Because I trust you,” Rey whispers, and he thinks about reminding her that trust really doesn’t have much to do with it, that Bail has been known to tear his way into Ben’s body regardless of _trust,_ but then she brushes her fingers over his face. “Because you’re here with me. With _me,_ Ben.”

In that odd, heavy-handed metaphor, Ben might be the sun. But he’s a sun that gravitates around something, and not the other way around.

“Don’t be afraid,” Rey whispers. “I feel it, too.”

He trembles. Rey brushes a hand over his hair. He catches her wrist, and kisses her palm.

“I love you,” he breathes.

Rey grins. “I know.”

_I know, I know, I know._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was EASILY the smuttiest scene I have ever written. I know it is still very tame. Please be proud of me anyway. 981,000+ words on AO3 and we're here.
> 
> I ascribe much of my success with this last scene to "Eavesdrop" by The Civil Wars.
> 
> I know "fuck" isn't in the Star Wars Canon, but consider: It should be. It can be way more satisfying than a simple "kriff."
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's been commenting! The enthusiasm, these last few weeks in particular, has been exceptional and I feel very lucky.


	16. The Song Remains The Same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Echoes are all I’ve got left.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the song by Led Zeppelin. And that's exactly where the similarities between it and this chapter end.

Ben opens his eyes, with the strange feeling that someone has just said his name.

He blinks, as it quickly becomes apparent no one else in the room is awake.

He has no memory of falling asleep, but realizes he must’ve, judging by the chronometer on the wall of the bunk room in the _Falcon,_ indicating they’ve got a little over ten hours left in their flight. He sits up, jostling a sleeping Rey, who automatically rolls away from his movement, distorting herself into a ball. She is still naked, gloriously naked, and he blinks down at her with a boyish awe. He considers lying back down and curling himself around her again, falling asleep with his nose in her hair and his chest to her back, but knows there is more to be done before they make planetfall on Coruscant.

With great regret, he stands, shuffling back into his clothes.

The _Falcon_ is quiet, the only discernible noise being the rattling of the ancient pipes, the hum of the hyperdrive. The main hold is empty, and Ben hesitates by the empty Dejarik table. Someone has cleaned up the half-eaten bowl of Shuura and Desert plums. He looks to the side, to the communications station, and sees that the Marksman-H training remote has disappeared. He wonders where it might have gone, and finds he isn’t desperate to know.

He continues to the cockpit.

Inside is only Chewbacca, his feet tossed leisurely up on the control panel. He’s holding a datapad in one hand, watching a podrace recording, while his other hand is brushing the feathers of a--

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ben mutters.

As he speaks, the porg resting on Chewie’s knee takes off, flying in an irregular circle shape over his head. Its _keroos_ echo in the small space.

“I thought we’d gotten rid of them,” Ben comments.

 _“On the_ Falcon, _you did,”_ Chewie says. _“Tessalie lives on base.”_

“Tessalie?” Ben repeats. “You… You _named_ the porg?”

_“Rose did.”_

Ben snorts out a laugh, deciding he isn’t too surprised. He walks into the cockpit, settling into the pilot’s seat next to Chewie. Tessalie the porg returns to her perch on Chewie’s knee, blinking at Ben with big dark eyes.

“We’ve met,” Ben says to Tessalie, wondering if porgs have the kind of long term memory that’d allow them to remember Ahch-To from five years earlier. Tessalie only _keroos_ softly in response. As he watches, she settles back, and begins picking at her wing with her beak.

Chewie switches the podrace off. _“How are you?”_

“Um… Calm.”

Chewie stares. _“Yeah, right.”_

“No, really.” Ben pauses, searching for the right words. “For so long, I’ve just been… anxious. And afraid, and angry. The last few weeks have been… difficult. And I know tomorrow, with everything, I know how it can go, but I’m just… Calm.”

 _“Calm,”_ Chewie repeats.

“Yeah,” Ben says. “In some ways, I feel almost relieved… Like, _at last._ At last, this is happening.”

The last stand. The cards have been dealt, and the Resistance is all in. The call has gone out.

The spark of rebellion has become a fire, become an inferno.

The end.

 _“I understand,”_ Chewie says, before Ben can feel self-conscious and guilty about thinking almost positively about what is sure to be a hard battle. _“It can be freeing, knowing… Knowing the war has reached a breaking point.”_

“Your second one around.”

_“My third.”_

Ben frowns. “Your third?”

_“Yes. One is this moment, in this civil war between the Resistance and the First Order. Before, when we marched on Endor against the Empire, as the Alliance. And before that: the waning days of the Clone Wars, when the fight finally came to Kashyyyk.”_

“I…” Ben stares. “I’m sorry, of course. I forgot.”

It’s an egregious overlook. And it surprises Ben; he forgets how old Chewie actually is, how Chewie had a full and complete life before he ever heard of Han Solo.

 _“I wish the Separatists had forgotten too,”_ Chewie says, and Ben laughs.

“Why did they come to Kashyyyk?”

 _“Our position on so many trade routes,”_ Chewie explains. _“The Randon Run, Nightroad, Durkteel Loop, Great Kashyyyk Branch… and a few other uncharted routes.”_ Ben smiles, and Chewie winks. _“We were of great importance to the Republic, which feared losing our world to the Separatists for those reasons. We did not, otherwise, have much to offer the Republic. Kashyyyk’s cities were not viewed as ‘cities’ by much of the Republic. Too wild, too organic.”_

Ben has visited Kashyyyk before, when he was a child. He remembers craning his neck to look at the towering trees, remembers Chewie carrying him on his shoulders. He remembers watching Wookiees swing from tree to tree by rope, remembers Bail convincing him to try it with him.

 _“The Clone Wars were nearly over by the time troops landed on the shores of Kachirho,”_ Chewie says. _“I was a warrior, assigned to guard the Jedi Master who was acting as general for the Republic forces: Yoda.”_

Ben sits up. “You knew Yoda?”

 _“Yep,”_ Chewie says, clearly delighting in Ben’s shock. _“He was very popular among the People of the Trees. He had worked as a negotiator and defender for us in the past; I understand he volunteered to come to Kashyyyk for this battle. He came all that way, for what was ultimately a very short battle that we lost. Yoda was on Kashyyyk when the Jedi Purge began. Of course, I didn’t know that was what was happening at the time. I only saw Master Yoda behead two clone soldiers. I thought it was an isolated incident, but Master Yoda’s pain made it clear that it was anything but.”_

Ben has thought often of Order 66, in an almost masochistic kind of way. This idea that the entire Jedi Order, a body of hundreds of souls scattered across the galaxy, could fall in a single day is mind-boggling. Knowing how many warnings and threats were overlooked leading to the massacre is both infuriating and devastating. And to be a Jedi during that time, during those hours, and _feeling_ the lives of your brothers, your family, slip away… He cannot imagine it.

 _“The droids broke through our defense,”_ Chewie continues. _“And we fled into the mountains. We put Master Yoda on one of our pods. He said goodbye. He told me he would miss me. I still did not understand what was happening. It was not until many years later that I understood Master Yoda knew, even then, he would never return to Kashyyyk.”_

“What happened after that?” Ben asks, quietly.

 _“Well, the Republic transitioned into the Empire,”_ Chewie says, morosely. _“And the clones were more successful at invading Kashyyyk than the droids. We lost our planet. The Emperor then legalized slavery across the galaxy, and many of my people, myself included, became slaves. I remained a slave until I met your father, and he freed me.”_

“And thus began your life debt,” Ben says, dryly. “I think you’ve gone above and beyond it at this point, Chewie.”

Chewie shrugs. _“I enjoyed my years traveling around the galaxy with Han. Even more so, once Luke and Leia came into the picture, and then you boys. It stopped being a simple debt many years ago. Now, I stay because I am glad to.”_

Ben smiles.

The porg, which had been listening oddly intently to Chewie’s story, issues a sad little _keroo._

 _“My life debt is to Tessalie now,”_ Chewie says. _“I ate one of her brethren.”_

Ben isn’t sure whether to laugh or not, unsure if Chewie is kidding about owing a life debt to a porg. And Chewie offers no explanation. He only reaches forward, setting the datapad up on the control panel, and the two of them sit back to watch the recorded podrace.

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

She is alone in the bunk room, still curled on the makeshift double bed on the floor, Ben nowhere in sight. She sits up, checking the time on the chronometer. Nine hours until Coruscant. She sighs, and gets to her feet, pulling her clothes back on. She checks her hair in the mirror, wincing a little at how it’s become flattened and unruly, Leia’s careful and neat work dangerously close to ruin. She painstakingly tucks it back into shape, knowing she’ll have to ask Ben later to look it over.

She leaves the room.

The ship is quiet, and Rey catches glimpses of starlines out the occasional window as she walks. She peers into the galley and fresher, wondering where Ben has gone, but does not see him. She walks into the main hold of the _Falcon_ and finds Lando, sitting at the communications station.

He’s got a headset over his ears, and Rey makes to walk past, to leave him be, but he winks at her. “Good morning, sweetheart.”

Rey flushes, reminding herself she doesn’t have to be embarrassed. She rolls her shoulders, uncomfortably aware of her mussy hair. “Did we get a transmission?”

“Oh, no,” Lando says. “No, I’m uh… Just listening.”

She frowns. “Listening to what?”

“Come here.”

She goes, sitting on the stool next to Lando. He unrolls a second headset, and Rey pulls it over her head, mangling the braid of her hair further. She stills, listening for whatever Lando might be listening to, but all she can pick up is static, with an occasional burst of coordinates and binary.

“We’re… listening to the nav computer?” Rey asks.

“Mm-hmm.”

Rey blinks. She’s seen a lot of weird things from pilots, kooky rituals they insist on. She has seen Ben refuse to start up the _Falcon’s_ engines in any order except his very specific preferred one, and has heard that Poe likes to hit his hand on the side of his x-wing three times before taking off. But this, listening to a ship’s computer go through a commonplace process, is a bit strange for even her.

“Um… _Why,_ Lando?”

Lando looks at her. “How much do you know about this ship?”

“She’s a Corellian TY-1300f light freighter,” Rey says at once. “Almost a hundred years old. She’s got modified sensor-proof smuggling compartments, a _heavily_ modified hyperdrive, a computer consisting of three droid brains, and--”

“Ah,” Lando says, pointing a finger at her. “There it is.”

“What?”

“You ever wonder _why_ the _Falcon’s_ got three droid brains as her computer?”

Rey pauses. She can’t say that she has, in her five years of flying with and in the _Falcon._ She’s always written it off as a quirk, a weird thing Han did. Ben has never commented much on it, only telling her the droid brains can bicker among themselves and be hard to handle.

“Why does the _Falcon_ have three droid brains?” Rey asks now.

“She’s got a transport droid brain,” Lando says, holding up one finger. “That helps her appear as a simple transport on most scans. And she’s got a corporate espionage slicer droid brain--” he holds up a second finger “--which makes it easier for her to get into places she hasn’t been before. And her third brain came from a self-made piloting droid.”

“Self-made?” Rey repeats, stunned.

Lando grins. “Self-made.”

“That’s impressive.”

“Oh, she was. She sure was.”

“You knew her?”

“Her name was L3-37,” Lando says. “Elthree. We worked together, way back in the day. Elthree would assemble and improve herself with scraps. It was the most incredible thing to see. She really was the smartest thing I’ve ever met, myself included. She was stubborn, and sassy, and she cared deeply about droid rights.”

Rey gawks. _“Droid rights?”_

“Yeah, I know. She got us kicked out of a lot of bars for that one.”

Rey laughs, though her laugh soon quiets, as she recounts what else Lando said. “What happened to her? How’d she…”

Lando sighs.

“We took a job on Kessel,” Lando says. “It was my first gig with Han, actually, back when he was running with Beckett’s crew. We were there to steal coaxium. And the mission was mostly going well, until Elthree started freeing up droids that were being used as slaves. The droids rebelled, and the whole mine, the whole operation, fell apart. While we were fleeing, Elthree was shot. She fell apart in my arms.”

He doesn’t look at her as he speaks, focusing instead on a grimy wall. He’s got a faraway look in his eyes, a tense line to his mouth, and Rey feels badly for asking him to relive what is clearly a depressing tale.

“We got off Kessel okay, but then the Empire caught up to us,” he explains. “And it was a bad idea, but we didn’t have anywhere else to go, so… We went into the Maw.”

“Ben told me Han flew through the Maw,” Rey says, recalling their conversation on Lothal, under the odd mosaics, the drawing of the Maw.

“He sure did,” Lando replies. “And Elthree, she was… She was fading. I was losing her. I can’t remember who suggested it, but someone did; it was suggested that we upload Elthree into the _Falcon_ to act as our navigational system. She’d always been my best navigator. And so, I, uh… I did it. I uploaded her. The _Falcon’s_ computer latched on. But before she integrated, she told me… She told me we’d had fun together. And then she disappeared into the computer, and navigated us out of the Maw. She saved my life.”

He stops speaking, finishing his story with an awkward little shrug. It is the first time Rey has ever seen Lando not suave, not cool and collected, and it makes something in her ache.

“I’m so sorry, Lando,” she whispers.

“Me, too,” Lando agrees. “So, every now and then, I just… Listen to the nav computer. It isn’t _really_ her, of course. She stopped being Elthree the second she integrated into the _Falcon._ But, you know… It can be nice. To pretend. To think I might hear an echo of her in all that static.” He looks at her, wry. “Echoes are all I’ve got left.”

He pauses, and wonders: “Is that pathetic?”

His melancholia is obvious, his wistfulness paramount.

A small ritual he does, just to hear an echo, a memory.

_“The sun will keep you safe.”_

Rey reaches forward, and takes Lando’s hand.

“If it gives you comfort,” she murmurs. “Then it could never be pathetic.”

* * *

Ben and Chewie are drawn out of the cockpit by the smell of cooking food. They walk through the _Falcon_ to the galley, where Rey and Lando are squeezed into the space, chatting and laughing, splitting a bottle of Cambrian wine between them.

“Bantha burgers!” Rey calls, and Ben gasps an _oof_ as she shoves a plate into his chest. “And yours is extra rare, Chewie, as you like it.”

In addition to the Bantha burgers is a Goatgrass salad and Ahrisa bread. Ben stands still and lets Rey and Lando load up his plate, eyebrows raised at their synchronization and all the food. He thinks Lando or Chewie must’ve packed this food before they’d left, as the _Falcon’s_ galley is nowhere near this large or advanced to accommodate the cooking of such a spread.

They walk back out to the main hold, settling down at the Dejarik table. Chewie drags a crate over as an extra table. Lando marches to the communications station and sets up a disc of Quenk jazz to play while they eat.

It is an astonishingly pleasant and warm scene. Ben feels a little dazed, so startled and surprised by the sweet domesticity of it all. There’s Chewie, spices and blood from the Bantha meat caught in the fur around his mouth; Lando, bobbing his head to the beat while buttering up a slice of bread; and Rey, giggling, her cheeks a little red due to the wine.

It’s enough to make Ben forget what they are flying toward.

They clear the plates away after dinner, but don’t spend time cleaning them, instead dumping them in the sink. (Somewhere in the galaxy, Ben thinks, Leia is frowning.) They return to the Dejarik table, where Lando lights up a cigarra and Chewie pulls out an ancient stack of Sabacc cards.

“I ain’t betting the _Falcon_ this time,” Lando says.

 _“How could you?”_ Chewie asks, shuffling. _“You don’t own her.”_

Rey gets a pained look on her face when Chewie says this, and Ben frowns. Before he can ask, Chewie finishes dealing.

“Which game are we playing?” Ben asks, taking up his cards.

Chewie and Lando exchange a glance.

“Trooper Sabacc,” Lando says. “Back in the day, we’d play this in between missions.”

“For the Alliance?” Rey asks, pausing in sorting her cards to look at Lando. Ben spots Chewie trying to casually use his greater height to peer over Rey’s head at her cards, and Ben snaps his fingers, shaking his head. Chewie shrugs, unrepentant.

“Yes,” Lando confirms. “It’s probably just a lesser known variant of Sabacc but we called it Trooper since we were the ones playing it.”

Ben raises an eyebrow. “You were never a _trooper,_ Lando.”

“Semantics,” Lando replies, and Ben snorts, because there is definitely more than semantics that differs between a trooper and a general.

 _“Ben, your bet,”_ Chewie says.

“Hang on, are we actually playing for credits, or--”

“We _should_ play for credits,” Lando mutters. “We’ve got a Crown Prince at this table--”

“Yes, and a scavenger turned Jedi who is very poor,” Rey comments.

Lando waves a hand dismissively. “No way, sweetheart, you’re engaged to be married. What’s his is yours, etcetera.” 

It is more true than Rey realizes, Ben knows. He’d been allowed access to his inheritance from the Organas when he came of age, but hadn’t touched it during his six years of solitude, when he’d rebuffed his identity. He’s used it some in the years since, ensuring the New Jedi Order exists independently of the Resistance, but it’s largely been left alone otherwise. Except for the time when he contacted the various financial institutions holding the money and updated the permissions to give Rey access to the accounts.

She doesn’t know. He knows she would feel weird about it, insisting it isn’t her money, that there’s no point in her using it, she’s just fine on her own. And Ben has never wanted to make her feel owned, and so he hasn’t pushed it.

But it’s important to him that she can get to it, if need be. Such as if he dies.

Not that Leia or the Resistance would let Rey or the Jedi Order _starve,_ but; it’s important to Ben.

For this game of Sabacc they settle on playing only for bragging rights. Chewie and Rey unearth a few bins of extra screws and washers that they decide to use as gambling chips, assigning a monetary value depending on the size of the object. Lando floats the idea of making it a drinking game, an idea that is immediately shot down by Ben and Rey, who aren’t willing to risk getting drunk before the last stand tomorrow.

In the end, it’s a fun game between friends. The pot of screws and washers grows and falls as participants win various rounds. Rey manages to bluff her way out of a jam. Chewie threatens to knock all the cards and screws and washers off the table when he draws an unhelpful card. 

“Oho, Queen of Air and Darkness,” Lando comments when Rey plays the card. The symbol depicts a vaguely humanoid figure, wearing a crown, with one half of the body completely filled in with ink and the other half only showing wispy lines.

He stops commenting when he realizes Rey is trying to form a Pure Sabacc run.

At one point, Ben draws a card, and immediately lays it out on the table, realizing it’ll finish the run he needs.

The Star looks back up at him, recognizable by its white body and four points of mixed black and white.

Ben glances at Rey, who is torn between amusement and exasperation.

“Just when I need it most,” he murmurs, and lays out a finished run.

Chewie and Lando immediately begin to yell about cheating, but Rey only smiles, and puts her hand on his knee.

* * *

After several rounds of Sabacc, they break up. Lando drifts off for a “power nap,” while Chewie returns to his perch in the cockpit to check for messages. Rey follows Ben back to the bunk room.

Ben sits down on a mattress on the floor, leaning his back against the side of the bunk, and rifling in his bag for _Ways of the Cosmic Force,_ the text he’d been gifted for his birthday from the other Jedi. Rey lies down at his side, and rests her head in his lap. His hand brushes her hair. Over the ship loudspeaker, soft classical music plays.

She looks at the ceiling, speckled with mold and mildew. The _Falcon_ hums around her, comforting and familiar, as grounding a soundtrack as any, an odd but perfect complement to the music. She listens to Ben’s even breathing, the soft scratching of his pen, as he circles words in the Jedi text.

She tries very hard not to focus on the fact they have only a few hours left.

“What are you doing, exactly?” Rey asks.

“Lazy translating.”

Rey laughs. “What?”

“Translating only words I recognize on sight,” Ben explains. “I’ve got my current notebook here too, but then I’d need both hands to study two things at once, and I’d rather keep touching you.”

Rey has no argument for this. “Anything interesting?”

“In this text? Always.”

“Really? Like what?”

Ben tilts the text, showing her a drawing of what appears to be a yellow disc. It’s largely flat, save for what looks to either be a line of windows or silver running through its center.

“This is some kind of station, I think,” Ben explains.

“Station?” Rey repeats. “A space station?”

“Yeah. I don’t recognize its full name, whatever this word is before it--” Rey can’t recognize it either “But the word for ‘station’ is pretty stable across the Jedi texts. But I’ve never seen a station that looks like this.”

The odd shape of the station looks familiar to Rey, though she isn’t sure what it’s from.

“The color is close to the color of Finn’s lightsaber,” she notes.

Ben smiles. “Hey, you’re right. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”

He turns the page of the text, and resumes reading. Rey draws his hand down, placing it on her chest. She draws errant designs on the back of his hand, staring at the ceiling and thinking of nothing much, until she realizes Ben is humming along to the classical music piece playing over the speakers.

“You know this song?” Rey asks.

“Mm-hmm.” Ben pauses, and she tilts her head up, seeing him paused, thinking. “It’s popular in the Core Worlds. Actually considered to be a romantic piece, believe it or not.”

Rey can believe it; the song swells and ebbs, and the piano is lovely.

“I heard a live performance of it once,” Ben adds.

“When?”

He frowns, thinking. “A long time ago. I was quite young. This must have been before we went to Devaron to train at the Temple with Luke.”

And there is Ben, Rey thinks. Slipping into the casual use of _we_ when describing his childhood, as he so often does. All his memories of it are linked inextricably to Bail.

“My mother took Bail and me to a wedding on Brentaal,” Ben explains. “Brentaal’s system of government is fairly similar to what Alderaan’s was, where influential and wealthy families controlled the government and exchanged power among themselves through marriage. Two members of a couple wealthy families were getting married, and my mother was invited, as Princess of the Royal House of Alderaan. She brought Bail and me with her, as her heirs. I think… It must have been the first time I was ever surrounded by people who thought of me as _royalty.”_

Rey smirks. “Poor little Ben.”

“It was overwhelming!” Ben says, defending himself, and Rey laughs at his petulant tone. “You know, before that, Bail and I didn’t really understand what Alderaan had been. It was hard for us to understand an entire system, a civilization, a culture, could be annihilated like that. For a long time, when Mom told us we had to do something _for Alderaan,_ we thought of it as a chore, like something we _had_ to do, like we were humoring a great-aunt. People coming up to us at the wedding and speaking so politely and so sorrowfully was a wake-up call.”

Rey instantly sobers up, feeling guilty for teasing him. Ben rubs his thumb over hers.

“But then people _did_ try to get my mother to agree to an arranged marriage between an eligible upper-class Brentaalian daughter and me, and it stopped being sad really fast.”

That gets Rey to laugh, and he smiles.

“So you heard this at the wedding?” she asks.

Ben nods. “Yeah. It’s traditional for the bride and groom to begin the reception with a dance together.”

Rey listens intently. She has never seen a wedding, has only a vague concept of what it is. She knows for sure that her idea of what a wedding is and entails is very different from Ben’s. The perspective of a desert scavenger versus High Society heir of the Core Worlds.

“They danced to this song, I think,” Ben says, thoughtfully. “It was late in the evening, and we’d just sat through an entire marriage ceremony, and both Bail and I were feeling antsy and impatient, but… I don’t know. There was something about this couple. I was just a kid, and I was _definitely_ completely uninterested in the idea of romance and love--” Rey bites her lip to refrain from interruption with something sly “--But they were just… so happy. Bail was bored, but I watched, and…” He shrugs. “It stuck with me.”

Rey thinks about it. She pictures tiny Ben, Ben as a child; she has seen a few holos, due to Leia’s eagerness to share them, so she has a decent visual reference. She thinks of this small Ben, surrounded by royals and wealthy citizens, opulence in every direction, and being completely unaffected by it. Focusing only on the dancing couple, locked in a kind of happiness that is galactic and not exclusive to a single world or class of society.

Ben sets the text aside.

He lies down on his side, so they are face to face on the two thin bunk mattresses they dragged to the floor.

“Rey,” Ben says, very quietly. “Will you dance with me on our wedding night?”

She feels the tense jerk in her abdomen, her fear and despair attempting to break through and overwhelm her. Her anger is always there, ready to be unleashed, ready for her to lash out.

But there is simply no time for it. And if this is it, if this is one of the last conversations she and Ben have, then she wants to be honest, and she wants to be as kind to him as he has been to her.

“Yes, Ben,” Rey whispers. “I will dance with you on our wedding night.”

* * *

“You ever been to Coruscant, Rey?” Lando asks, turning around to glance at Rey, seated behind him.

She nods. “Once, a couple years back. I tagged along with a group from Ordinance and Supply, to barter for materials and supplies in the Coruscant Underworld.”

“Oho,” Lando chuckles. “So you’ve _really_ been to Coruscant.”

Ben smirks at Rey’s helpless little shrug.

She had not liked it much; that had been the first thing she’d said to Ben upon her return to Ajan Kloss. While she’d enjoyed seeing the radical diversity, aliens from all over the galaxy living on one planet, she hadn’t liked the extreme urbanization that is Coruscant. She hadn’t liked being unable to see the sky, being surrounded by so much tech and pollution. For someone who grew up in the sands of Jakku, where the sky was endless, Coruscant had felt very suffocating indeed.

 _“Coming out of hyperspace,”_ Chewie says, looking at the nav computer, _“In three, two--”_

With a lurch, the _Millennium Falcon_ slides out of hyperspace. Coruscant lies below, a planet sized single city, a dusky purple color lit with yellow light, drenched in pollution and smog. They hover in the air for a moment, as Chewie plugs in the complicated coding that will make them invisible to any First Order scanners; a bit of new tech developed by the Fleet Command team last year.

 _“We’re offline,”_ Chewie says, and everyone in the cockpit breathes a little sigh of relief.

Because it is obvious the First Order is here. There are dozens of ships loitering in the atmosphere, and while the ships are unmarked, the number of guns and cannons identifies them as battleships. Ben thinks of the citizens of the planet below, and wonders what they are making of the sight, if they have realized what it means. If they are remembering the time of the Clone Wars, when the war would occasionally be fought in the muddy skies above their homes.

Lando angles them down, flying them to the surface. A light rain is falling, splattering the _Falcon’s_ front transparisteel window.

“Where am I dropping you kids off?” Lando asks, casually, like Ben and Rey are just hitching a ride to a vacation spot.

“The POTU,” Ben replies.

Lando turns around, raising an eyebrow.

The POTU, or “The Periphery of Uscru,” or, if you’re local, “The Peril of Uscru.” A seedy Underworld district next door to the slightly less seedy Uscru Entertainment District. While the Coruscant Security Force maintains a presence in the Uscru Entertainment District, they are never found in the POTU, as crimes in the POTU are directed to Coruscant residents and not the off-world tourists who frequent the Entertainment District. Without the oversight of security cameras and police, criminals roam the POTU, criminals including gangs, serial killers, and thieves.

It’s a good place to hide.

A good place to land on Coruscant when you are aiming to do so inconspicuously.

 _“Ballsy,”_ Chewie says, and Rey laughs.

“We’ve got a contact who’ll get us a ride to the center of the action,” Ben says.

They dive down, leaving the upper levels of Coruscant for the Underworld. The further down you go, the less clean, fresh, sanitary, and wholesome society becomes. Levels of poverty increase, while standards of living decrease. Advertisements become scarce, while shelters and flea markets become abundant. The air thickens with chemicals, the refuse of factories above.

The POTU isn’t far enough down to require oxygen masks, but it’s close.

“Kriff,” Lando says as they fly. “I haven’t been so far down here since I was in my thirties.”

“What were you doing then?” Rey wonders.

“Something entirely legal,” Lando says, without missing a beat.

“A likely story,” Ben mutters.

Lando finds a landing depot next door to a very disreputable-looking strip club and a similarly sketchy pawn shop. The _Falcon_ settles down, and the four of them get to their feet.

In the main hold, Ben and Rey pull their jackets on. Rey has opted to wear white and gray, leggings and shirt and arm wraps, and she looks so similar to how she looked the day they first met that Ben wants to stop and just look at her for a bit. But her hair, that elaborate braided style, could only have been done by Leia Organa. 

He watches as she clips her lightsaber to her belt, and places her NN-14 blaster pistol in its holster at her thigh.

“Ready?” she asks.

Ben nods. “Ready.”

They say their goodbyes to Lando and Chewie. There’s some gentle ribbing (“Shoot straight,” “I always do!”) and lots of hugging. But Lando squeezes Ben’s shoulder a little too tightly, and Chewie places his paws on Ben’s face, and Ben knows this might be the last goodbye, for any of them.

 _“Good luck, Ben_ Kkata,” Chewie says, and Ben smiles reflexively at the name. _“Your father would be proud of you. You are his son.”_

Ben smiles.

He thinks, automatically, of the last time Chewie told him he was truly Han’s son.

_“I think your father would forgive Bail. And I think you are your father’s son.”_

“He’d be proud of you, too,” Ben says to Chewie now.

With final glances, calls of best wishes and hopes for safety, Ben and Rey disembark. Though it’s midday on Coruscant, the depth of this level of the Underworld filters all sunlight from the surface, creating murky shadows and a vague sense of unease. In the landing depot, Ben turns as the entry ramp closes. He tilts his head back, and watches as the _Millennium Falcon_ soars, flying above him, angling up, returning to the light.

He waits until he cannot see it any longer, and only then does he look down.

Rey watches him, understanding and kind, all soft, blistering light.

She extends a hand, and he takes it.

* * *

The POTU District is, more or less, exactly as Rey had expected and feared. It is the epitome of unsavory, beggars with cybertech eyes leering at her from the shadows, spiced-out Twi'leks in lingerie tottering on dangerously high heels, grizzled Kessurians licking their lips over a questionable-looking hunk of meat. Rey’s nose wrinkles, both with distaste at the general sight, but also at the atrocious aroma wafting out of the vents of the streets.

“Yeah,” Ben mutters, so softly she can barely hear him over the scarf and hood obscuring his face. “It’s unpleasant.”

They walk closely together, nearly stepping on the other’s toes. Neon signs over their heads advertise brothels, apothecaries, and cantinas. Techno music wafts out of the slitted door of a club whose only obvious business name is a dark blue dash over the doorway.

Adding to the general distastefulness of the scene is the rainwater. Rey had assumed they were too far down in Coruscant to get any water from the rain falling on the surface, but she quickly learns this to be untrue. There _is_ rainwater. But it falls in mere trickles of dirty gray water, noxious and ugly, slipping down the awnings and bricks to puddle in the gutters before slipping further, inching downward to the planet’s physical surface, level by level.

Rey has always enjoyed rain, has liked touching it, but she shies away from it now.

Ben only scowls at the water as a few droplets splatter his dark jacket.

She follows him into a bar; a dingy sign names it as The Shrike.

Rey has visited a lot of seedy and suspicious bars over the last five years, usually in a bid to garner intelligence for the Resistance. But this bar is the worst she’s seen. A fine layer of slime covers nearly every surface--and Rey is determined to _not_ find out the reason for that--and the walls are stained yellow due to copious tobacco smoking. The patrons of the bar all turn and stare at Ben and Rey as they enter. An Azumel scowls with its six eyes over waxy gray skin; a woman in a skirt that barely brushes the tops of her thighs exhales a plume of dark green smoke; near the bar, a Caphex ogles Rey from behind pupil-less red eyes.

Yet Rey does not do anything to indicate her wariness. She is a child of the wastelands; the best way to stay alive is by refusing to betray your fear.

Ben marches to the bar, and she sees how a few of the patrons lean away as he walks past them. She is unsure if it’s due to the lightsabers he carries, one hanging at his belt, the other at his back, or if it’s his general haughty aura. He is making it clear that he is meant to be here and knows what he’s doing. Rey trails him, meeting the eyes of everyone watching them.

A woman emerges from the curtain separating the back room to the front. She has bright red hair, a color not dissimilar to molten lava, and pale blue skin, like early dawn light. Her eyes are slitted, and yellow, and Rey is altogether unsure if the woman is of a species she isn’t familiar with, or if her appearance is simply the result of numerous bodily modifications.

The woman seems to recognize Ben even with his face partially masked, as she curls her lip at Ben, and says, “Vassic.”

“Atheenia,” Ben replies, smoothly.

Rey tilts her head, because _Vassic_ is not one of the aliases she has seen Ben use in the last few years. He rarely uses aliases, as most of the galaxy knows his face, whether as the Supreme Leader of the First Order or Master of the New Jedi Order. She does not comment on this, choosing to remain silent and still as Ben nods at her.

“This is Rey,” he says. Atheenia reaches forward, and Rey accepts her handshake. Atheenia’s hands are very cold, and her nails are two inches long, a red that is closer to blood than lava.

Atheenia simply studies Rey without comment, or introducing herself further. She drops Rey’s hand, choosing instead to turn on the spot, and walk back through the curtain. Without a moment’s hesitation, Ben follows, Rey bringing up the rear.

They walk into a filthy kitchen, dirty pots and pans piled on every surface, soups bubbling in burned out bowls. Rey cannot help but grimace at the sight, unfortunately catching the gaze of a surly Didynon, whose bulbous face wrinkles at her disapproval.

They leave the kitchen, emerging into an alley, devoid of people but filled to the brim with dumpsters.

Abruptly, Atheenia punches Ben’s arm.

 _“Juno’hervoe,”_ she says, and Rey startles to realize Atheenia is laughing. It’s surprisingly shrill for such a stern-looking woman.

“Hey, that’s _Sihse Juno’hervoe,”_ Ben replies, adding the honorary of _Master_ to Atheenia’s comment of _Jedi._

“Can’t forget that,” Atheenia says, still chortling. “Maker help us. Little Ben Vassic, Master Jedi. Unbelievable.”

Ben turns to Rey then.

“I met Atheenia about ten, nine years ago,” he explains. “I moved some product for her. Ryloth to Coruscant.”

 _Oh._ Rey realizes then that _Vassic_ must be an alias leftover from Ben’s cargo hauling days.

“Best cargo hauler I’ve ever had,” Atheenia says. “He didn’t ask any questions. Moved it all quietly. Delightful.”

Ben shrugs a little. He then straightens, looking at Atheenia.

“Well? Do we have a ride out?”

“Oh, yes,” Atheenia agrees. “Can’t imagine why you want to go there--”

“The First Order’s knocking on Coruscant’s door, Atheenia.”

She stills. She snaps her fingers together, very quietly, a nervous tic. “That so.”

“Yes. Within the hour.” Ben pauses, and adds, “You should prepare yourself. You need to make a choice. Do you want to remain on Coruscant, where you might inhabit a world locked under First Order control? Or do you wish to flee to the Outer Rim while you can still leave?”

“If the First Order takes the City,” Atheenia says, dismissively, “Then it won’t matter much where I go. Even the Outer Rim would face restrictions.”

She isn’t wrong.

“Well, at least you’re certain,” Ben says. “Now. How about that ride?”

* * *

Atheenia’s mode of transport is an ancient hovercraft with peeling paint and a persistently rattling engine. Ben cedes the front seat to Rey, clambering into the back as Atheenia guns the engine.

“It’s your repulsor projector, isn’t it?” Rey asks, nearly having to shout over the rumbling engine.

“What do you mean?”

“The rattle,” Rey says. She makes the clicking noise with her tongue.

Atheenia frowns. “No? A mechanic told me the rattle was due to the engine’s weathered--”

“No,” Rey says, shaking her head. “No, it’s your repulsor projector. I’d bet the hitch is rubbing up against the protector plate, creating that little grating noise. You need to be careful. If it gets caught up in the lateral repulsor bank, you could crash, or fry the engine completely. And this thing’s engine must be long obsolete.”

Atheenia looks at her. And then she looks up, to catch Ben’s eye in the rearview mirror.

“Where did you find this girl,” she asks, “And where can I get one?”

Ben laughs, and Rey smiles.

Atheenia flies them out of the POTU (Rey makes a note to never, ever visit again) to the Uscru Entertainment District. While this neighborhood is still unkempt, it is far less disturbing than the POTU. The crime is kept to the shadows, and the establishments all have business licenses. The neon signs of the district, advertising everything from fashion brands to podracers to whiskeys, are lit up, visible even in the brighter light. The Entertainment District, though still in the Underworld, is closer to the surface.

Rey aches to see the sun.

They zip through the streets of the Entertainment District, pedestrians yelling insults and expletives in the wake of the heavy exhaust of Atheenia’s ride. Rey glances in the mirror. Ben is reclining casually on the backseat, staring out the window, like a calm traveler enduring a mildly interesting layover. 

Atheenia slams to a stop outside a brightly lit cantina.

“Stay out of the intersection of Vos Gesal Street and Daring Way,” she cautions. Outside, the rain is falling slightly harder, this much closer to the surface. “It’s infested with crime.”

As she speaks, she passes a palm-sized pocket navigator to Ben, who tucks it into his jacket pocket.

“Thanks for the tip,” Ben says, drawing his hood back, adjusting the scarf over the lower half of his face.

“And the ride,” Rey adds.

Atheenia smiles. “Eh, don’t worry about it. I owed Vassic for a… late payment.”

Ben scowls. “You _never_ paid me--”

“And now I’ve paid! We’re all good.”

Ben rolls his eyes but reaches forward to touch Atheenia’s shoulder. “Fine. Thank you.”

Rey and Ben hop out of the hovercraft, and Rey watches as Ben and Atheenia exchange a complicated looking handshake through her open window, before Atheenia speeds away.

Rey raises an eyebrow at Ben, who flushes.

“Just a code we had,” he mutters.

“Secret handshakes between suspicious Underworld dwellers,” she says, and Ben laughs.

The street is crowded. Most of these people are workers, going about to and from their workplaces. Many are shoppers, popping in to the high scale clothing and jewelry stores. Many are gamblers, slipping into nearby casinos. And yet more are obvious tourists, carrying holographic maps of the Entertainment District, jabbering among themselves in more languages than Rey can count. Above them, Coruscant stretches, struggling for the surface.

Rey finally turns away from these sights, to see Ben already watching her.

He smiles, the bits of his face she can see lit up in purple, yellow, red, and green from the neon around them.

“Ready?” he asks.

She tucks her hand in his.

“Ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOLO was fine for me, but something I took away from it was the idea that the Millennium Falcon should never have been taken from Lando, since it contains all that remains of L3-37. L3-37 and Lando have the most tragic romance in STAR WARS, don't @ me.
> 
> I have tried to understand Sabacc and I still don't.
> 
> "Will you dance with me on our wedding night?" lifted from a scene in THE VILLAGE [2004]. It's like. Peak romance to me.
> 
> Ben carrying a lightsaber on his back was lifted from the recent run of THE RISE OF KYLO REN comics. So extra, so cool.
> 
> Atheenia is an OC from my Cassian Andor Nonsense series, my go-to when I need a Coruscant Underworld character.
> 
> "Vassic" was the pseudonym Ben was going by when he first met Rey and Finn in AND THE WORLD WILL BE BETTER FOR THIS. #FullCircle


	17. Return of the Jedi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know how much it pains me to say this, but it must be said: Today, we aim to kill.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should have linked to the THE VILLAGE scene that inspired "Will you dance with me on our wedding night?" last chapter. [Here it is.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Txry7KZuIc)

The Snapping Septoid is not a particularly interesting cantina, meaning it is not usually rife with tourists seeking an illicit high from a death sticks dealer, or those looking for some kind of stage show. The cantina is so-named after the seven-legged Eriadu insect due to its resilience in continuing as an establishment despite this disadvantage. It somehow manages to survive in the Uscru Entertainment District, one of Coruscant’s more popular neighborhoods, due to its intriguing position between the safer surface areas and the doorway to the Coruscant Underworld. The Uscru Entertainment District promises safety even with its aura of danger.

The Snapping Septoid only wheezes at danger.

Ben and Rey walk inside the cantina, which is a far cry from Atheenia’s nasty bar in the POTU. The Snapping Septoid is clean, for one, though a little grubby; there are tears in the upholstery of the bar stools, and long scratch marks on the floor from something far too heavy being aggressively dragged over the wood. But there aren’t any mold or water stains in sight, which makes it by far the cleanest place Ben and Rey have visited today.

And there, seated near the backdoor, are Jannah and Finn.

Both Jedi automatically look up when Ben and Rey enter, sensing them in the Force. For a moment, the four of them can only smile at one another. Rey is the first to come to her senses, marching across the room.

Unlike Atheenia’s bar, no one bothers to look up at the newcomers. This place sees unfamiliar faces all the time. Atheenia’s bar never gets new blood.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Finn says, smirking when Ben rolls his eyes, his face still masked by the scarf and hood.

“Glad you found it okay,” Rey says, squeezing Finn and Jannah’s hands in hers.

“The Snapping Septoid is a unique name,” Jannah comments, half-glancing around, to make sure the bar workers don’t overhear her. At her hips hang two lightsabers: the one she created, and the one Rey recently built. “Wasn’t too hard.”

“How was it down below?” Finn asks. He and Jannah had been able to hitch a ride on a nondescript transport, which didn’t need to go so far down into the Underworld as the iconic _Millennium Falcon._

Rey grimaces. “Awful. I don’t want to go back there.”

“I can’t imagine we will anytime soon,” Ben murmurs, glancing at the chronometer at his wrist. They’ve got half an hour to get to the surface before the First Order starts their assault.

“What’s the plan?” Finn asks, adjusting the bag slung over his shoulder.

Ben retrieves the palm-sized navigator from his pocket. “My POTU contact gave me a map she’s spent years building of the Coruscant Underworld. She’s created a route to get us to the Senate District without being seen by Coruscant’s security cameras.”

“Neat,” Jannah says.

Ben leads the way out of the Snapping Septoid. It’s still raining, a light drizzle splattering the stained streets under his feet. Instinct has Ben avoiding eye contact with the passersby who glance over the assembled Jedi, but he’s pretty sure he isn’t recognizable, between the hood and scarf.

 _It won’t be a problem much longer,_ Ben thinks, and hates himself for it.

He holds the navigator from Atheenia in the palm of his hand. The positioning device in it has locked on to their present location in the Uscru Entertainment District, and has highlighted a route through the streets that will take them to the Senate District on the surface in the most expeditious and inconspicuous way possible.

The Jedi dart down an alley, a bit cleaner than the one in the POTU, but still an unsanitary place to be. They clamber up a short ladder, and then run along the roofs of a series of interconnected buildings. Ben glances through the skylight of one building, and catches a brief glimpse of a family of Sabats, their whiskers standing out over their pink skins, as they settle down for a late lunch.

As they climb, Ben talks to the Jedi.

“I’ve got my ideal choices for your dueling partners among the Knights of Ren, and then I’ve got my realistic choices,” he says.

Rey smoothly jumps the divide between a twenty-four hour convenience store and dilapidated antiques shop. “I’d love to hear both.”

“Good, because you’re going to.”

Jannah huffs a laugh at that, sliding down a trellis with aplomb. She’s tightly braided her thick hair so it rests at the nape of her neck in two wrapped braids; Rey has warned her often enough of the dangers of dueling with loose hair. 

They reach an imposing wall of solid concrete, stretching overhead. Ben pauses in front of it, frowning at the wall. The navigator in his hand is indicating they need to walk _into_ the concrete.

Ben steps forward, and presses a hand to the concrete.

Two doors slide open, revealing a metal box; an elevator.

“Wicked,” Finn breathes.

The four of them step into the elevator. There are only two buttons: an arrow for down, and one for up. Finn hits the up button, and they begin to rise.

“Ideally, Rey would duel Vesper,” Ben says. “She was the most advanced Jedi in Luke’s Temple, aside from my brother and me, and Rey is the most advanced Jedi here aside from me. And then Finn would duel Hansa, and Jannah with Lior. Hansa has always had a bit too much emotion. He’s easy to bait, easy to trip up. And Lior was the last apprentice Luke ever recruited, so he’s got comparatively little experience next to the others.”

Rey, Finn, and Jannah all nod.

“So… How are your realistic choices different?” Finn prompts.

“I suspect Hansa will target Rey,” Ben says, speaking calmly, staring up as the elevator rises. It’s old and slow-moving, and there are no windows, and he desperately hopes they aren’t going to get trapped in here. “Hansa would prefer to fight me, because of… because of Saffron, but seeing as that isn’t an option, he’ll go after Rey.” Ben looks at Rey. “He won’t be… kind to you.”

Rey raises an eyebrow. “That’s fine. I won’t be, either.”

Ben smiles.

“Vesper is… a bit of a wild card,” Ben continues. “I don’t really know what she’ll do.”

He’s thought a bit about Vesper’s demeanor, her words to him on Mustafar. How she’d appeared almost agonized over the Darkstaff, its darkness and strength. He isn’t entirely sure what to make of it.

But he also remembers the purple smoke in her eyes, how it warped her. She’s almost certainly back under the Darkstaff’s grasp now.

“I have no idea what… options we’ll have,” Ben says. “But if possible, I would ask you, Finn, to deal with Vesper, and Jannah with Lior.” He turns to Jannah. “I hope you don’t think I doubt your skills or abilities. I truly don’t. I know you're brilliant and talented. I only wish you to not be overwhelmed.”

“I understand, Master,” Jannah says, offering Ben a warm smile.

Ben knows he doesn’t need to go into greater details about the weaknesses and faults of the Knights of Ren, and their fighting styles. He’s done plenty of it, sporadically, over the last five years. He has always been determined to prepare the Jedi to fight without him, to fight their own battles. He’s always known the likelihood of any of them coming face-to-face with a Knight of Ren or two at any given time.

“Celosia Ren was born Vesper Tille,” Ben says, suddenly. “Evoleth was once Hansa Rodan. And Fallow used to be Lior Baydowl.”

He can still see them, when he closes his eyes.

Vesper was the first new arrival to the Temple, upon Luke’s official opening of it, two years into him training the Organa-Solo twins exclusively. Vesper cried when her mother dropped her off that first night. Ben and Bail, nine year old boys who had never spent much time playing with girls, stared in horror at the weeping seven year old girl. But Luke took her in, gave her hot chocolate, and immediately worked to bring an additional girl to the Temple to train. The second student was a Rekk girl, with neon blue skin and red eyes, named Sera.

She died the night the Temple burned. To this day, Ben doesn’t know who killed her. He desperately hopes it was not Vesper, her best friend.

Hansa arrived the same year as Vesper. He was a scrawny boy with pale skin and tawny-colored eyes, who nearly blended into the soil that lined the river near the Temple. He came with a uniquely frenetic energy, and was always eager to abandon early morning meditation in order to play grav-ball behind the fresher building. But he was wicked smart, and inhaled every text and holodisc they had regarding galactic history, treating education as a limitless luxury.

Ben wonders if that was how Snoke seduced him; a promise to use his knowledge to reshape the galaxy as he saw fit. To make it _better._

 _Better;_ not the same thing as _good._

And Lior, the final apprentice Luke recruited, when Luke hit the maximum number of students he felt he could handle at one time. Lior was a Thranta Rider, a member of a humanoid species known for their wild air tricks atop flying Thrantas in the skies of Bespin. Lior arrived already covered in the tattoos mandated by his culture to face a crowd of wide-eyed apprentices all eager to know everything about his life and his family.

Ben likes to think Lior gets to fly, still. But he somehow doubts it.

“Why are you telling us their birth names?” Finn asks, frowning.

Rey only looks at Ben, calmly, a hint of sorrow in her eyes. Ben had already told her, briefly, of his time on Mustafar, how he’d called Vesper’s name and she’d returned. 

“It’s possible that speaking to them with their real names might loosen the Darkstaff’s hold,” Ben explains, and Jannah and Finn stare. “It happened with Vesper, when I switched places with Bail. But I don’t know if it was a fluke, or if it was simply due to our previous familiarity with each other, or something else entirely. But if there’s a chance… Well. They’re supernaturally powered Knights. We could use any advantage we can get.”

He looks at them all, carefully. “You know how much it pains me to say this, but it must be said: Today, we aim to kill.”

“There is no death,” Jannah whispers. “There is the Force.”

Ben nods. “Yes. Remember that, now more than ever. And we aren’t… To quote our great friend, Rose Tico: We aren’t killing what we hate. We’re saving what we love.”

He studiously avoids looking at Rey.

The elevator doors slide open without any fanfare.

Muted Coruscanti sunlight falls on them.

The rain is coming down even harder, this high up.

* * *

Rey follows Ben through the streets of the Senate District.

They are properly on the surface now. When she tilts her head back, one hand keeping her white hood in place, she can see muffled blue sky besmirched with ugly gray clouds. If she squints, she can catch a glimpse of artificial light; a small hint to the numerous ships gathering just outside the atmosphere.

Anticipation thrums in her belly.

As they walk through the streets, Rey realizes that they are no longer surrounded only by the citizens of Coruscant, but by the Resistance as well. She recognizes a few faces from around Ajan Kloss, people who wink at her, who shift blasters at their sides. Weapons on Coruscant, even on the surface, has never been unusual, particularly in the last five years of the galactic war. Perhaps it would have been strange during the time of the New Republic, when the Galactic Senate was in session in this neighborhood. But a senate has not been working out of Coruscant in several generations.

In the crowd, Ben is tall, standing out as a blur of black. The rain is, in a sense, a lucky break for the Jedi, as it allows them to remain hooded and masked without drawing untoward attention. But she isn’t sure anyone is really looking all that closely at the others. People are most likely largely distracted by the stormtroopers gathering.

But they aren’t all stormtroopers, not as Rey has known them. She thinks they must be like the strange droid-man Ben encountered, with their red armor and headless bodies. They march smoothly, looking for all the world like people. But where a head would be is only a screen, or nothing at all.

Regular stormtroopers walk alongside them. More than ever, Rey wishes she could see their faces, to try and guess at what they are thinking and feeling. Do they know what lies inside the armor of the droid-men? Do they know they could be next?

Behind Rey, she hears Jannah whisper: “Now?”

“Not yet,” Finn murmurs in reply. Rey glances around, wondering what they’re talking about. Finn only winks at her.

Ben slows in front of them.

“Force Concealment,” he says, out of the corner of his mouth.

 _Oh._ Rey had forgotten. She does not often hide her Force signature, but it’s important they remain invisible to the Darkstaff and Knights of Ren until the last moment, lest they be targeted by the stormtroopers and droid-men before they can confront their true enemies.

She blinks, and slips out of the Force, Jannah and Finn miming her.

If she couldn’t see them in front of her, she’d think herself completely alone.

“Let’s think for a moment,” Ben says, stepping into a small city park.

It’s oddly quaint, dark green grass blowing softly in the light breeze, small rain puddles gathering on the gravel paths. As it’s raining, the park is nearly empty, save for pedestrians cutting through it to get to other streets. Ben marches to a large oak tree and ducks under it, avoiding the rain.

“The Imperial Palace is the goal of the First Order’s assault here,” he says. “So I think we should try to draw the Darkstaff away from that place.”

“Makes sense,” Finn agrees.

“To do that, we need to entice it somehow,” Ben continues.

Rey frowns. “Are we not bait enough?”

The Darkstaff has decidedly expressed interest in eating Ben’s Force essence. Rey is sure _four_ Jedi are even more appetizing.

“Probably,” Ben relents. “But let’s pretend for a moment that we aren’t. Where should we go?”

They think about it. Rey half-glances around the park, as if an answer might appear in a shrub or trash can. She moves her eyes up, taking in the massive skyscrapers that litter the city, the ornate architecture, the tall spires--

“The Old Jedi Temple,” Rey breathes. “It has a Force nexus!”

Ben had told her as much, five years earlier, on their way to Zakuul, when he’d first told her about Force nexuses.

Ben smiles at her now.

“Perfect,” he agrees.

They can see the top of the Temple from here; Rey guesses it’s a mile or so away. A unique building, its design akin to a fortress, with four tall towers surrounding a larger spire. The Temple looks a little shabby in the muted sunlight.

“What’s it used for, these days?” Jannah asks, as they start to head in the Temple’s direction, moving at a speed closer to a jog than a walk.

“Not much,” Ben replies. “Luke visited the Temple shortly after the fall of the Empire. The Empire had set up a lot of booby traps and snares inside, to catch any trespassers; the idea was a Jedi who survived the Purge might return at some point. Luke deactivated them all. He also poked through their archives. That’s how he got the Jedi texts we have. Most of them were destroyed by the Empire, but some survived.”

The Jedi are, Rey knows, resilient in that way.

They hurry to the Temple, as the skies overhead darken with ships.

* * *

They are at the front stairs of the Temple when Ben feels it.

He nearly trips and falls with the wave of violence that suddenly surges in the Force. At his side, Rey, Jannah, and Finn all stagger.

 _“Stars,”_ Jannah gasps.

“Is that it?” Rey demands, eyes wide, and Ben remembers that none of them have had the displeasure of meeting the Darkstaff in person.

“Yes,” Ben confirms, throat tight. He turns to look at the sky. Even through the clouds, he can spot a few First Order battle cruisers. As he watches, troop transports begin to drop down, landing on the surface streets. Resistance transports follow. Screams, screams of Coruscanti citizens, start up around them.

Finn nods once. “Okay. Now, Jannah.”

Jannah reaches into her pocket, revealing a comlink.

“Cars,” she calls, naming another former stormtrooper turned rebel. “It’s time.”

Ben turns, in time to see Finn open the bag he’s been carrying. Of all the things Ben might have guessed he was toting, two arms of stormtrooper armor was not any of them. He stares, bewildered, as Finn and Jannah pull the armor on, each of them with one arm now adorned in the white armor of a First Order stormtrooper.

But the white armor is besmirched, Ben realizes.

There are designs on the armor, drawings made in thick colored markers, green, yellow, blue, purple, pink, orange. Each arm is adorned with drawings of flowers, stars, suns, birds, Resistance and Alliance iconography, the symbol of the Jedi Order, and peace signs in several languages. On the front shoulder plate, in large black block marker, are numbers and letters.

On Finn’s: FN-2187.

On Jannah’s: TZ-1719.

Ben swallows the sudden lump in his throat.

“Oh,” Rey whispers, similarly moved.

“We’re hoping the stormtroopers will see us partially armored and understand we were once one of them,” Finn explains. 

“We didn’t have enough armor for all of us to be fully covered,” Jannah adds. “So many of us came to the Resistance without it. But we had enough for everyone to have at least one limb covered.” 

“The drawings are all of symbols we associate with hope and peace,” Finn continues. “Coupled with our stormtrooper names. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Ben echoes.

Jannah smiles. “We got very artsy on the flight here. I’ll never forget the bewildered look on Commander Sovv’s face when we asked for markers.”

“It’s _brilliant,”_ Rey says. “This is a fantastic idea.”

“It is,” Ben agrees. “An incredible gesture.”

Finn and Jannah exchange a glance, clearly pleased.

The comlink in Ben’s pocket buzzes, and he fishes it out.

“Corellian Spike,” he says.

 _“Hey, this is Black One,”_ Poe replies. Ben can dimly hear a rumbling in the background; the engine of Poe’s x-wing. _“Wanted to give you a head’s up; we’re starting our assault.”_

“Yeah, I got that.”

Sirens have started up: the Coruscant Security Force issuing a shelter in place.

“We’re making our stand in the Old Temple,” Ben says, jerking his head forward. Rey, Finn, and Jannah follow his direction, and the four of them begin to hurry up the Temple steps. “If we can get any help in keeping First Order soldiers that are _not_ the Knights of Ren and Darkstaff out… That’d be great.”

_“I’ll see what I can do.”_

Ben snorts a laugh. “Thanks, Black One. May the Force be with you.”

_“Yeah, you too, buddy.”_

Ben returns his comlink to his pocket, and climbs up the steps after the Jedi.

The back of his neck prickles.

His brother is nearby.

Ben takes down his Force Concealment, revealing himself and his location. 

_Come get me, Bail,_ he thinks. _You know where to find me._

* * *

The Old Jedi Temple feels like a mausoleum.

It is the best description Rey can come up with, as they step inside the once-magnificent entrance doors, which now hang jagged off their hinges, either due to natural decay or forcible entry. Inside, the Temple is _drenched_ with death. The Force rings with it, echoes of screams, wails, bloodshed, and devastating violence. For a moment, the four Jedi of the New Order can only loiter in the entrance hall, and allow the loss to flow through them.

Ben has told them of the Jedi Purge, everything he remembers Luke telling him about it. And Leia was able to compile a decent oral history of the event, cobbling together old holonet headlines and eyewitness accounts of the day. But it is one thing to hear summaries and anecdotes of the massacre, and a whole other thing to stand in its physical ruins.

Rey can see that the Temple was once grand. It’s massive, for one; mezzanines and pillars on all sides, cavernous arches opening up to yet more space, everything cyan, gold, and mahogany. Statues line the walls, of humans and aliens of all kinds. Most of the statues are damaged, missing various limbs.

Holes overhead, spaces caused from the ceiling caving in, allow rain water to fall into the Temple in certain spots.

“It’s a ziggurat,” Ben says. He keeps his voice low, as if they might be disturbing the Temple, and the echoing ghosts within. “Built around the Force nexus. If we want to get to it, we need to go higher.”

It feels almost sacrilegious to move carelessly through the Temple, and so they stick to all that remains of the staircases and hallways. Crumbled piles of stone litter the floor, while scorch marks decorate the walls like graffiti. Rey hurries forward to walk beside Ben.

“Have you been here before?” she asks, quietly.

He shakes his head. “No.”

He doesn’t add anything more, and Rey decides not to ask.

Finn pauses near a corner, frowning at the wall. Rey understands why. The abrasions on this wall are long and thin, and could not have come from a blaster. The assembled Jedi know the only weapon they could have come from: a lightsaber.

Finn looks at Rey, then Ben, and back.

She sees his unspoken question.

_His grandfather did this?_

Rey nods.

To herself, she adds, _With the lightsaber whose shattered crystal I still wield._

They continue upwards, moving in a circular fashion, and Rey realizes that when Ben told her the Temple was built around a mountain that he meant it quite literally.

They walk into what Rey realizes is a derelict greenhouse. Artificial natural lights line the walls and ceiling, while winding paths of gravel cut through overgrown grass. Small bridges span empty canals, and cracked stone fountains emit only a small trickle of water. Many of the plants in the room are dried and dead, while others have seemingly flourished, overflowing their pots and breaking out of glass vases.

“A greenhouse?” Jannah asks, looking at a wilting bamboo tree.

“The Room of a Thousand Fountains,” Ben murmurs. “This place was once a meditative retreat for the Jedi. It contained plants from all over the galaxy.”

Rey pauses at a basin. A tiny puddle of dirty water lies inside it, and she sees her frowning reflection on its surface.

“We’re close,” Finn says.

The Force seems to pulse around them. Something is drawing them in, drawing them deeper: the nexus. 

There are two huge, closed black doors to the west of the room, and Rey knows, with just as much certainty if she could actually see the other side of them, that the Force nexus is through those doors. The entire wall around them is more of the same black stone.

But to Rey’s surprise, Ben instead drops to his knees in the tall grass. He rests his hands on his thighs, and closes his eyes.

“Ben?” she prompts.

“They know we’re in here,” Ben whispers, eyes still closed.

A chill runs along Rey’s spine.

“Who?” Finn asks.

“Bail,” Ben murmurs, eyes still closed. “And… the Darkstaff. They’re coming.”

Reflexively, Jannah glances at the open doorway they’ve just walked through.

Rey walks closer to Ben, kneeling next to him. Finn goes to her other side, while Jannah goes to Ben’s other side, until the four of them are kneeling in a loose circle, in tall, barren dried grass, in a room full of so much life and so much death.

“Reach out,” Ben says. Rey closes her eyes, and shuffles on her knees to get more comfortable. Her thigh holster for her pistol digs into her leg. “This is a sacred place for the Jedi. We have an advantage here. It’s our turf.”

“Damn right,” Finn breathes, and Rey pictures Jannah smiling.

“Breathe,” Ben continues. “The Force is a conduit of memory, and we are in the Temple where the Old Jedi Order fell. Let them know we’re here.”

 _Be with us,_ Rey thinks. _Be with me._

The air thickens around them.

And then comes the unmistakable sound of the front doors of the Temple, several floors below them, getting blasted off their hinges.

* * *

Ben rises, the three other Jedi joining him. They all drop their Force Concealment, and Ben is sure they are acting as a homing beacon for the Knights of Ren and Darkstaff below them. The Temple quakes a little, as this building that once housed the just warriors and peacekeepers of the galaxy endures visitors cloaked in Darkness, wielding a Sith relic that is the antithesis of all the Jedi stood for.

“Force meld,” Ben murmurs, and Rey, Finn, and Jannah immediately slip into his mind.

This closely connected, he can feel their tremulous fear, their raw determination, and the power and strength of the Force that zips through their veins.

“We’ll be okay,” Ben says aloud. “There is no emotion, there is peace.”

“There is no ignorance, there is knowledge,” Jannah whispers, her eyes locked on the doorway they walked through to enter the Room of a Thousand Fountains.

“There is no passion, there is serenity,” Finn says, unclipping his lightsaber from his belt.

“There is no chaos, there is harmony,” Rey murmurs. They can hear voices and footsteps, and a crooning, mesmerizing Darkness.

“There is no death, there is the Force,” Ben says.

She looks at him, and he sees only tranquility and love in her face.

“There is no pain,” Rey whispers. “There is grace.”

That old mantra, an imagined bit of the Jedi Code, from a Force vision Ben experienced as a teenager. In the vision, he heard himself say the words. He’s never known where they came from, as there is no way to understand what came first. Time is a flat circle, and Ben is forever seeking knowledge and comfort in any way he can find it.

He is always seeking to understand what has happened to him, what has brought him to this moment.

“You were curious,” Ben says to Rey now, “As to why I used Force Rend against the Terentatek on Pasaana.”

She nods, a little frown appearing on her face. “Yes.”

Ben smiles at her.

“I did it because I needed to,” he says. “I did it because I knew it was necessary, to destroy the Sithspawn. I chose to do it. I did it because I wanted to. Because I could.”

Ben has always longed to make his own choices. To make choices he could forgive himself for.

Twenty-five year old Ben Organa-Solo would never have fathomed using Force Rend, even against something as evil as a Sithspawn. He would have abhorred that choice. But thirty year old Ben Organa-Solo used Force Rend because he could. Because it ended what could easily have been a devastating and lethal battle without any of his Jedi falling.

The Ben Organa-Solo of five years ago would never have used Force Rend because he would have feared the repercussions of it. He would have feared what would become of him in dipping a toe into the Dark Side like that.

But this Ben Organa-Solo knows himself. He knows his limits. He knows he is righteous, and emotional, and yet: good enough, anyway.

_“Promise me something. Promise me that whatever you do, whatever you become… Promise me that it will always be your choice.”_

Something he said to Rey five years earlier, shortly after they met, when he saw the enormity of the future, of the choice to become a Jedi. He hadn’t truly had a choice to be one, had only followed Bail to Luke’s Temple.

But after seeing his brother as Kylo Ren, after feeling the destruction of the Hosnian System, after realizing how much was at stake and had been lost by his own inaction: Ben made that choice. He chose to become a Jedi, to embrace that path, to help and to protect.

In the Temple on Coruscant now, he looks at Rey.

“Don’t be afraid,” Ben whispers.

Rey stares at him. 

They were his last words to her on Takodana, the First Order and Resistance screaming through war torn skies above them, when Ben knew it was time to stop running, when he thought Rey would be the last hope for the Resistance once Snoke killed him.

They were the final words he offered her when the two of them stood in the snow on Ilum and prepared to face Kylo, Celosia, and Fallow Ren, when Han was dead in the burning base and Finn was bleeding on the ground, and Rey had called the Skywalker lightsaber to her hand and Ben wielded his for the first time in six years.

The concluding advice he had for her on Velmor, when they stood in the twilight in a green field, and Rey carried her staff and the pieces that would complete her lightsaber, and Ben was proud, so proud, and knew she would return to him no longer an apprentice, but a Jedi Knight.

And they were the words she said to him, to comfort him after his first conscious switch with Bail on the _Millennium Falcon,_ when he needed her devotion more than ever, when he needed to remember who he was.

For Ben and Rey, _Don’t be afraid,_ means the same thing as _I love you, you are not alone._

In the Old Jedi Temple on Coruscant, Rey lifts her chin and holds his gaze. She is dressed in tans and whites, holds her saberstaff in her hand, carries the pistol he once gave her at her thigh, and wears the ring he offered her when he asked her to marry him. She is ethereal, and grace, and he will not say goodbye to her. Not now, not ever.

_No one’s ever really gone._

There is no such thing as a final farewell.

“All the way,” Rey says, and by that she means, _I love you, we can’t be separated._

Fallow Ren, formerly Lior Baydowl, walks through the doorway first.

His red lightsaber is already lit, a strong beam of plasma with a dark red blade like dried blood. Lior is dressed in a braided tunic, strands of woolen rope spanning the fabric, and his lip is curled up in a snarl.

Following him is Celosia Ren. Vesper. Her honey blonde hair is still cut short, barely brushing her chin. There is a hint of a purple bruise on her cheek Ben doesn’t remember from Mustafar, though she could’ve gotten it any number of ways in the time since. Her lightsaber is also already lit, her green eyes darting rapidly, taking in the room.

Trailing her is Evoleth Ren, or Hansa Rodan. His tawny eyes narrow in hatred when he spots Ben, who thinks he doesn’t need to be Force sensitive to _feel_ the animosity and violence aimed in his direction. Hansa has built a new lightsaber, creating a blade thicker than his previous one; likely due to the use of a new kind of crystal, or maybe even a synthetic one. The Sith were known to be forced to rely on synthetic crystals when their options for acquiring crystals became scarce.

It is the Darkstaff itself that enters the room after Hansa. It is not carried, but instead rests in a hovering container with a shape not unlike a vase. It could almost be comedic, the sight of this ancient, evil artifact zooming around on its own platform, if it was not in fact an ancient, evil artifact. Its dark, oily presence swoops into the room with it, turning Ben’s stomach over.

Last, then, is Kylo Ren. Or: Bail Organa-Solo.

Ben meets his brother for the first time in five years.

His face is not a surprise; it could never be, as it is identical to Ben’s, save for the jagged scar that distorts the right side of Bail’s face, and the longer hair. Bail is dressed in his typical all-black uniform, cape and all. At his hip is his crossguard lightsaber, containing the pulsing, frenetic red blade Ben has been seeing a lot of lately. Ben carries its twin at his own side.

He and Bail stare at each other in silence, and for a moment, a small, desperate moment, it’s like they’re the only ones in the Temple. Ben is overwhelmed with emotion, more so than he’d expected, but he thinks he should have been prepared, should have known he would be. He’s always been too sensitive. He’s always loved more than he can bear.

He looks at his brother, and he feels him in the Force, acutely and closely, and Ben wants to _scream,_ he wants to yell and destroy and annihilate, he wants to say, _Bail, was it worth it, was this worth it, how did we get here, how dare you--_

Rather than speak any of this, he only nods at his brother.

Bail has a tight, tense look on his face. Purple light peeks out from his dark eyes, as it does in the eyes of the other Knights of Ren.

When he speaks, he says something Ben never would have predicted to be his first words after a five year separation:

“What’s wrong with you?”

Initially, Ben is, of all things, _offended._

He thinks it’s rich that Bail should be the one asking that question.

The Darkstaff makes a noise that can only be called a cackle.

 _“He_ burns,” it says, and Ben’s skin crawls. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Finn tighten his grip on his lightsaber, while Jannah’s eyes widen slightly. Ben wonders if they assumed that when he told them the Darkstaff could speak that he was exaggerating. _“All of that brilliant, hot Light… Look how he’s sunk into rage and pain. He longs to burn you alive.”_

Ben’s Force signature.

Of course the Darkstaff can sense it. And of course Bail can feel the change. Even after five years apart, he likely could pick Ben out of a million Force signatures with no hesitation. Until, perhaps, now.

“I do,” Ben murmurs.

Bail’s face gives nothing away.

“Je’daii,” the Darkstaff croons, and Ben imagines that if it had a face, it’d be looking at the Jedi standing before it. _“So small in number, yet here to face the might of the Sith. I am almost impressed with this, your paltry excuse for a last stand.”_

“It won’t be our last,” Rey snarls, and Ben’s heart jolts. The Darkstaff’s purple light is spitting out of the top of the staff, sending up sparks. “But it will be yours.”

 _“Rey of Nowhere,”_ the Darkstaff says, and if Rey is surprised that it knows her name, she doesn’t show it. She stares it down, eyes locked on the purple light at the top of the staff. _“Your Light is similarly delectable. I shall enjoy feasting on your Force essence. Or, perhaps… If you come closer to me, if you join me, we can instead bring annihilation to the wasteland you were once a slave on. That rock in the Western Reaches. Jakku.”_

Rey frowns. “Why would I want to do that?”

For a second, Ben wants to laugh, as the Darkstaff seems to still. Lior and Hansa exchange a surprised look.

Bail has not looked away from Ben once.

 _“Of course,”_ the Darkstaff murmurs. _“Vengeance is not the_ Je’daii _way. Your Code holds you back. It prevents you from being all you can be.”_

“It’s never been the Jedi Code that’s held me back,” Finn says, suddenly. “It was always the First Order that did that to me.”

All eyes in the room zero in on the stormtrooper armor he wears. Jannah lifts her chin, subtly flexing her own armored arm.

 _“The man who calls himself Finn,”_ the Darkstaff says. _“We could free your comrades, you know. Turn them loose. Have the galaxy at their mercy.”_

“Not with you,” Finn snarls. “I serve no masters.”

 _“But you do,”_ the Darkstaff replies. _“A_ Je’daii _Master.”_

“I don’t serve him,” Finn says, suddenly calm again. “I learn from him. I work with him. I help him, and he helps me. In every way but blood, he’s my brother.”

Ben looks at Finn, who turns his head to meet his gaze.

Ben thinks of Finn, five years earlier, dressed in black and Poe Dameron’s battered leather jacket. He thinks of Finn’s fear, his determination to flee and hide. He thinks of how Finn threw that away in order to rescue Ben, returning to Starkiller Base to do so, at great physical and emotional cost. He thinks of Finn in the years since, meditating, training, sparring. He thinks of Finn leaning on Poe, wading through mud pits with Rey, pointing out something in a text for Jannah to read. He thinks of Dejarik games and Whyren’s Reserve. He thinks of companionship and contentment.

He has always thought of Finn as Rey’s brother, her chaos twin.

He realizes now that Finn is _his_ brother, too.

 _Thank you,_ Ben thinks in the Force meld.

 _Of course,_ Finn says in reply.

 _“What of you?”_ The Darkstaff asks, moving on to Jannah, who has been silent during the whole exchange.

“I’m just happy to be here,” Jannah says, deadpan. On Ben’s other side, Rey cannot smother her snort. Her hands fly up to cover her mouth as everyone looks at her. There is mirth and admiration in her eyes, and she stretches an arm behind Ben and Finn to fist bump Jannah.

All of the ragged emotions Ben felt upon seeing Bail again have slipped away, as he’s wrapped up in admiration and pride and gratitude for the Jedi who stand beside him. The Jedi who have looked this evil in the eye and told it in no uncertain terms to _shove it._

He looks at the Darkstaff, and shrugs.

The Knights of Ren all seem a little startled. It is their first time encountering Jannah, though Ben’s sure Bail would have told them about her existence already; her personality, however, is something else entirely. And they know Finn, having met him on a battlefield a few times, most recently the one on Malastare, when Ben killed Saffron to save Finn.

He glances at Hansa as he thinks this, and sees the Knight’s eyes are tinged in purple and narrowed in hate.

Rey, of course, they all already know. Lior and Vesper, from the duel on Starkiller Base. Hansa, from a handful of battlefields over the last five years. And Bail, who ended up with his mind bridged to hers by Snoke, who cajoled Rey in going to him on Snoke’s dreadnought, who ultimately slew Snoke while she watched.

Bail, who Rey tried to turn, to bring him home for Ben.

She failed. Just like Ben and Han failed.

 _“Your Knights are very loyal,”_ the Darkstaff says to Ben.

“They’re good people,” Ben says, and leaves it at that.

“Are we doing this, or what?” Finn demands.

“So eager for death?” Lior asks, pale eyebrow raised.

“Yours? Sure.”

Ben glances at Finn, but makes no move to admonish him. Ben is the one who told the Jedi to aim to kill today.

 _I can’t let it change him too much,_ Ben thinks, and wonders if he will be around to ensure it. He can only hope.

Hope, and fight.

He turns his head, to look at his brother again.

“Bail,” Ben says, and watches his brother flinch.

He has to try. Despite what Leia told him, Ben has to try. At least once more. 

He waits, watching for the hint of emotion, of sanity, as he saw within Vesper when he spoke her name. But either Bail is more lost to the Darkstaff than Vesper was, or he simply refuses to be swayed by his brother’s voice. Either way, Ben looks at Bail, and sees only hazy purple and dark brown eyes.

Ben knows what he has to do.

He has known for so long. In some ways, perhaps, he has always known.

 _Ben,_ Rey whispers in his head. A warning, and absolution, all at once.

“I know,” Ben breathes.

He retrieves his lightsaber from his belt, and switches it on, the dark blue blade erupting with a sound as familiar to Ben as the sound of his heartbeat. He hears similar noises next to him, as Rey, Finn, and Jannah all switch their own swords on, beams of green, yellow, and white.

Bail was the only Knight of Ren to not enter the room with his lightsaber already ignited. He ignites it now, a screaming facsimile of the sword he carried in his youth, the one he and his twin designed to mirror the other’s.

How they mirror so painfully now.

Ben reaches out, checking in on Rey, Finn, and Jannah. He finds them just as sure, just as strong, just as determined as they were when the four of them were alone in the Temple. He has nothing more to add. They know everything he would say to them.

 _“Yes,”_ the Darkstaff whispers, feeling the surge in the Force, the Light and the warmth and the rawness of Jedi being in this building after so many years of it standing empty. _“Yes, come to me…”_

Wordlessly, the Jedi split, the Knights of Ren mirroring them instinctively.

Eleven years ago, Ben ran to his brother across a field strewn with dead bodies, as the Temple of the Jedi burned behind him and the rain poured around him. He ran to him then not knowing that he would find only heartbreak and loss at the end of his run.

Ben runs to his brother now, knowing that heartbreak and loss is all he will find there.

Bail meets him halfway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY FINALLY we are getting to the #Action... 20,000+ words of Action... that I've split up into four chapters on the advice of a couple friends. I really didn't mean to Drag this out, it just kind of happened. There was a lot to cover. Hopefully the 20,000+ words of Action ahead will make it worth the wait.
> 
> The Coruscant Underworld really is just [Like That.](https://theputterer.tumblr.com/post/162871494040/teagrl-darthluminescent-coruscants)
> 
> Stormtrooper Rebellion!!!! Let's go!!! It's hard to fit in, since neither Ben nor Rey are instrumental in it, but it's important to me that Finn and Jannah get their own little story arcs.
> 
> I've officially hit one million (1,000,000) words on AO3. You are all cordially invited to my Procession of Shame.


	18. My Brother's Keeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Was it worth it, Bail?”

As Ben predicted, Evoleth Ren wastes no time in trying to kill Rey.

His red lightsaber is over her head, poised to strike, before she’s even halfway across the room. Rey twists her saberstaff in her hands, catching his blow, and knocking it aside in one quick movement. She doesn’t dare look around her, to see how the others are faring; her eyes are locked only on Evoleth.

He draws his hood back, revealing short light brown hair. She knows he’s only a few years older than her, almost exactly in between her and Ben’s ages. But there is something ancient in his glare, and she knows it’s due to the Darkstaff’s influence. The purple haze is an obvious symptom of this, but she thinks there is more, some invisible headiness.

The Sith, echoing in him.

“Rey of Nowhere,” Evoleth says. She realizes this is the first time she’s heard his voice, and she’s a little surprised by it. It’s higher than she’d expect, with a curling accent of the Outer Rim.

“Evoleth Ren,” Rey says, inclining her head. The two of them begin to circle each other. Their boots land heavy on the grass and twigs under their feet. “Or should I call you Hansa?”

He narrows his eyes.

Ben has told her that Evoleth’s emotion can easily overcome his good sense. But it’s a double edged sword; bait him, and he can lose control, and become sloppy. Bait him, and he can become simply too fierce to beat.

Rey is not afraid of ferocity.

She is rich with her own.

“You shall soon not call me anything at all,” Evoleth spits, “For you shall be _dead.”_

Rey smirks. “We’ll see.”

He charges her, and Rey is ready, and most of all she is quick. She moves automatically into Form V, Djem So, her preferred form for its viciousness and speed. Evoleth moves into Ataru, as she’d predicted, given that Ben had told her it was his preferred Form when he was a Jedi. She thinks his new sword’s thick blade is a bit too big for the acrobatic moves Ataru requires, but Evoleth does not seem hindered by it. Perhaps he took that into account while building it, and knew it wouldn’t matter.

Rey moves on the offensive, forcing Evoleth to walk backward as she strikes at him. She becomes a whirlwind, twisting as she walks, striking him with one blade and then the next. He’s slightly unsteady this way; he might never have faced a dual-bladed swordsman before. Rey is delighted to be his first.

 _Don’t get cocky,_ Finn snaps in her head, picking up on her smug emotion.

 _Never,_ Rey says.

She abruptly kicks out at Evoleth, sending him flying into a half-dead Brylark tree with an _oof._ Rey takes his moment of distraction to check on the others.

Finn duels Celosia Ren, as Ben had wished. Like Rey, Celosia seems to prefer Form V, or she’s simply decided that Form V will be most advantageous against Finn. To counteract this, Finn is fighting with Form III, Soresu, relying on the Form’s use of resilience and defense against Celosia’s physical attack. Finn’s face is blank save for the tightness of his eyes. He is holding his own, occasionally forcing Celosia to twist away from him to avoid his yellow lightsaber.

Across the room, Jannah is a blur of motion, of black hair, colored stormtrooper armor, tan trousers, and red shirt. Rey is gratified to realize that Jannah is wielding two lightsabers, her personal white bladed one, and then the gold bladed one Rey built on Ajan Kloss so recently. Rey had elected to give the lightsaber to Jannah to carry as an extra, but hadn’t anticipated her apprentice actually using it. To see her doing so is almost an electrifying feeling, Rey’s heart swelling in her chest. Jannah zips and flips with Ataru, swift as lightning, and Fallow Ren’s lip is curled, his strikes more sporadic and uncontained, desperate to land a blow on her.

And past them, more distantly, she glimpses black, red, and blue. She sees dark hair and wide shoulders, pale skin and long fingers, hands lifted, the Force pushing and pulling around them. 

The Darkstaff trails these two fighters as they make to leave the room, approaching the closed black doors at the back.

The doors leading to the Force nexus.

* * *

As a child, there was no one Ben wished to impress more than Bail.

It often felt like Leia was impossible to impress, and Han too easy. Luke was largely inscrutable, and seemed to go out of his way to never praise or compliment him. Chewie would say whatever he thought it was that Ben wanted to hear. C-3PO would probably short circuit if he said anything to Ben that was not embarrassingly subservient and polite.

But Bail would say things he meant, and so he wouldn’t mince words, and he wouldn’t downplay his emotions.

When Bail said he was impressed by Ben, Ben knew he really was impressed.

And Ben was always the quiet one, the calm one, the sensible one. He was the shore to Bail’s tempest, the grounding thing that was immovable, that would be there once the skies cleared up. He was always temperance and Bail was ambition. So, naturally, Ben longed to impress his brother.

And the best way to do that was to best him in a lightsaber duel.

The two of them were unparalleled duelists. Luke even tended to avoid fighting them if he could, and the other apprentices could never keep up. So if Bail wanted to be the strongest and most dangerous, then he needed a partner who could get him there. So Ben had to become the strongest and most dangerous too.

In the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, twelve years of training comes to a head.

Now, they are both the tempest. They are both the storm, and the ragged destruction left in its wake.

Ben bypasses Form VI, Niman, entirely. Niman had been his preferred form as an apprentice, as it let him use what he believed to be the best parts of all the other Forms. And Niman was meant for Jedi who lacked aggression, who were more likely to rely on creative uses of the Force rather than a blade, all things Ben found very attractive.

While he won’t give up that last bit, using the Force as an advantage, he gives up the other parts of it. The moderation. The defensive posturing.

He dives straight into Form VII, Juyo. The Form that defines violence and lethality.

Bail’s eyes widen slightly in surprise.

 _“Juyo,”_ whispers that cold, cruel voice, and Ben catches glimpses of dark wood and purple light out of the corner of his eye. The Darkstaff is following them. Ben isn’t thrilled about this, but at least it means the Darkstaff won’t be messing with the other Jedi. _“You use a Sith lightsaber Form,_ Je’daii?”

“Not exclusive to the Sith,” Ben snaps. He parries Bail’s lunge away, raising his left hand and shoving Bail back with a Force push.

Bail slams into the closed black doors leading to the Force nexus. His weight causes them to bang open, smacking the walls as they go, and Bail… disappears.

Ben hurries forward, doing his best to ignore the twinge of fear in his side.

He realizes quickly that Bail did not disappear, but fall. The room is a large, open space, reminding Ben briefly of the Sith Temple on Pasaana, and its amphitheater outside the Terentatek’s cave. There are rows of steps circling the room, angling down from where Ben stands on the top row. Three sets of doors can be found on the other three walls, allowing multiple points of entrance and exit for the Jedi who wished to visit this place, to meditate in this room. And at the floor of the room is a stone triangle: the apex of a mountain. The stone is a ruddy brown streaked with veins of blue and green. As Ben watches, odd bubbles of light emerge from the stone, to float in the air before vanishing entirely.

The Force inside this room _pulses._

 _“A Force nexus,”_ the Darkstaff says.

“A Light one,” Ben corrects. It does not feel like Zakuul did, which was a planet with a Force vergence that was balanced, neither favoring the Light nor the Dark. He supposes he should’ve known a Force nexus inside the Jedi Temple on Coruscant would be Light.

He feels the purple smoke before it reaches him, that acrid, stinging haze that can render him in debilitating agony if he gets caught in it, and he extinguishes his lightsaber and dives, somersaulting through the air downward to avoid it.

He lands on his feet, reigniting his lightsaber in the next moment as Bail slams his red blade down over Ben’s head.

“That looked like a nasty fall,” Ben comments.

The purple light in Bail’s eyes dances, like embers of amethyst fire. The fear in Ben’s heart evaporates.

“Juyo,” Bail spits. “Dangerous.”

“Not for me,” Ben replies. “I know who I am.”

He strikes forward, and Bail parries the blow away. Ben kicks out at Bail’s knee, but Bail either senses the move or knows Ben well enough to expect it, as Ben finds his leg frozen, Bail’s open hand pointed in its direction. He jerks his hand, and Ben is knocked off his feet, barely able to catch Bail’s follow-up attack with his lightsaber.

Ben manages to get his body to flip rather than fall, and he lands on his feet, turning around to deflect Bail’s next blow. And then Ben is back on the offensive, forcing his brother backward. They blur with nearly incomprehensible speed, fighting as only two duelists who know each other in every possible way, every possible form, can.

It is the grandsons of Anakin Skywalker, fighting each other in the Temple that Anakin once led a massacre inside.

One of them is a man named after Senator Bail Organa, who immediately ran to the Temple to help the Jedi as it burned, who was forced away by Clone Troopers, who witnessed them slaughter a young Padawan they were supposed to protect.

The other is a man named after Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, who survived the attack on his life and returned to find a Temple littered with corpses, who then watched the recordings of his best friend committing the murders, who recalibrated the emergency code to warn any surviving Jedi to stay away, to never come home.

It is two brothers, and all of the pain and grief they’ve caused each other.

* * *

The number one guidance Ben had offered to the Jedi had been this: Do not allow any of the Knights of Ren to pick up the Darkstaff.

“Get it out of their hands,” he’d said, as they hurried through the streets of the Senate District. “Don’t let them hold it. The Darkstaff’s power becomes wieldable then. Anything they want to do, anything _it_ wants _them_ to do; that’s when it’ll happen. We have to avoid that.”

In a way, the Darkstaff transporting itself had been a bit of a lucky break.

In retrospect, Rey realizes it did that to ensure the four Knights of Ren were able to duel the four Jedi.

Evoleth Ren _snarls_ at her, actually snarls, and Rey laughs, because it’s such a wild thing to do, and she’s supposed to be the feral one.

 _“Feral desert child,”_ as Ben once teased her, when they sparred under the stars on Takodana.

Her laughter, naturally, only makes Evoleth that much angrier. He’s panting, sweat dripping down his face, the common side effect of employing Ataru for so long.

But Rey is starting to tire, too. Djem So is fierce because it relies so heavily on speed, much like Ataru. She’s been able to apply the wide-angle swings of Djem So without too much effort, as her sword has two blades, meaning she only has to make one move to swing both.

She backflips, hurling herself over a mottled rosebush, to land on the top of an angular staircase overlooking the Room of a Thousand Fountains. She glances behind her, and sees yet another long hallway, dusty floors tiled in navy blue.

She hurries down the hall as Evoleth leaps up behind her.

Rey turns around, angling her sword in front of her--

And she’s jerked off her feet, caught in Evoleth’s Force grip. She doesn’t know if he’s reached the same conclusion she has, that it’s time to get into Niman and introduce a bit of moderation to this duel, or if he’s being manic and calling on every trick he can.

A more classical Jedi than Rey would be angry with this breach in proper dueling protocol.

But Rey of Nowhere, Rey of the Wastelands: She’s a little impressed.

Perhaps Hansa Rodan was also, once, a feral desert child.

Rey is still being pulled forward, and she tries to twist out of it, but she’s snared pretty well, and Evoleth grins, raising his sword over his head to strike down on her--

A gold lightsaber comes flying out of nowhere, from behind him.

It narrowly misses lopping off his hand entirely. Instead, the tip of the shimmering gold blade brushes the top of Evoleth’s knuckles, and he yells, dropping his lightsaber into his free hand reflexively so he can cradle his injured hand to his chest.

Rey falls to the hard tiled floor. She scrambles to sit up, in time to see Jannah burst into the hall, Fallow Ren on her heels.

Jannah calls the gold lightsaber back to her hand, catching it mid leap, and throwing her body forward in an elegant somersault. She hops back up on her feet at the same time as Rey stands, and they look at each other.

 _“Fuck,”_ Rey says, vehemently.

Jannah beams.

She steps to the side, so the two women can face the Knights of Ren standing opposite them. Evoleth is now facing Jannah, while Fallow looks at Rey. Rey angles her lightsaber up in a one-handed grip, while keeping her left hand folded across her chest, ready to deploy either a Force shove or push, depending on which way her attacker goes. Jannah, meanwhile, holds a lightsaber in each hand, one angled up, the other in a reverse grip pointing behind her.

They stare down their opponents.

Fallow and Evoleth exchange a glance.

And then they leap.

* * *

Ben has never allowed himself to fight with Juyo for so long, or with such intensity, before.

Juyo forces the user to keep their knees half-bent, to allow them to be ready to lunge and strike closely at any moment. But Bail is already so close, already so ferocious, that Ben is not seeing many opportunities to do so.

Because Bail is fighting with Juyo, too.

He’s fighting with Juyo as a Sith.

While Ben does fight with his rage, sorrow, and pain, he does so knowing he has the mentality that can keep it reined in, that can control it. He feels everything, but it does not own his being. Bail, however, has dived fully into his emotion and is demanding that it guide his movements. This makes him a more chaotic swordsman than Ben, who is all tight control. But Bail is no less dangerous like this.

At one point, a particularly savage strike from Bail sends Ben to his knees. Bail immediately follows up with a slash that is not so much as refined as brutal, and Ben’s lightsaber flies from his hand, soaring away, to clatter onto the dusty tile. Ben stretches his left hand back, grabbing the lightsaber he built for Finn almost five years earlier from its holster at his back. He ignites it, catching Bail’s strike, and shoving his brother back with a Force push, giving Ben the opportunity to get to his feet.

Bail raises his eyebrows. “Neat trick, Ben.”

Ben’s traitorous heart skips a beat at that, the boy in him waking up a bit, for how many times has Bail said his name? How many times has he called him, praised him, asked him a question? How many times has Bail reached for Ben?

 _The gift of memory,_ Ben thinks, _can be an awful curse._

Ben calls his lightsaber back to his hand, standing there with two blades.

“How did we get here _,_ Bail?” Ben asks. “How did it come to this?”

He can hear yells, bodies falling, lightsabers clashing, in the halls around them. Small bubbles of light filter out of the Force nexus below. The Force presences of Rey, Jannah, and Finn still shine brightly at the back of Ben’s mind, so he is not worried about the Jedi at the moment.

He reaches out for Bail instead.

Bail is the cold flame, the dark blue light that burns chemically, that catches on what is synthetic and fake. The kind that will catalyse a catastrophe if left to its own devices. The fire that demands a controlled touch. 

_Leia nods tightly. “While Bail was good at ignoring questions he found inane, you always did your best to answer them. You were so earnest about everything. So patient and kind. So quick to comfort. Often, you were the only one who could quiet and console Bail when he was upset.”_

The Darkstaff hovers behind Ben, but he doesn’t look away from Bail.

He stares at his brother, at his eyes, tinged in purple rage.

“We were always going to end up here,” Bail says. 

He begins to walk, suddenly calm, and Ben mirrors him. Identical faces and bodies facing off, circling the other, blue and red lighting the way.

 _“Here?”_ Ben echoes, and some of the anger, the _fire,_ that guided him to draw his sword against his brother returns to him now. “Here, in this Temple of a religious dynasty that our grandfather burned to the ground? Here, fighting below bombers and cruisers and starfighters trying to shoot each other out of the sky? Here, while our friends fight in the halls around us? Here, with our swords at the other’s throat?”

“Everything comes full circle,” Bail murmurs. “Destiny--”

 _“Fuck_ destiny!” Ben yells. “We can make our own path, we can choose our own…”

He pauses.

“We can choose our own ending,” Ben murmurs.

_“Even suns burn out.”_

Ben turns his head, and sees the Darkstaff hovering a short distance away.

 _It said I burn,_ he thinks, and wonders.

Bail does not give Ben a moment to grapple with this development.

His brother twists, lightsaber raised, and Ben turns to meet him.

They push forward, returning to the main room of the Force nexus, which is still sending up small bubbles of light. Ben and Bail are striking so quickly, so rapidly, that their swords snag on the wall and the stone, and sparks fly up around them. They clamber down the steps of the room, reaching the floor. Bail is forced to back up, Ben herding him towards the Force nexus without fully knowing why, until Bail’s back hits the stone. He stumbles, one hand flying back, to land on the stone--

A burst of light _explodes_ out of the stone, and both Ben and Bail are knocked off their feet.

The light soars straight up, smashing through the pyramidal roof overhead. Glass and stone fall three stories down, and the two men dive out of the way, dropping lightsabers and lifting hands to deflect the rubble.

When Ben lowers his hands, it’s to see a colorful sky. Sunsets on Coruscant are brilliant, oranges and yellows and reds, all that noxious pollution colliding in the atmosphere and creating something toxic but beautiful. Yet the sky overhead is more besmirched than normal, with smoke, fire, and ships. Starfighters zip through thin clouds like shooting stars, while TIE fighters screech in the gaps between.

But it is not the sight of war that has stilled Ben.

It’s that soft glow, that comforting ache. A glimpse of dawn at the end of a sleepless night. A candle in an empty room. A curl of soft brown hair.

_“Stars die all the time, Ben.”_

Leia is up there. Even so far away, and perhaps due to the Force nexus, Ben can feel her.

He chances a look to the side, and sees Bail staring as well, head turned up.

With that purple haze in his eyes.

 _No,_ Ben thinks, anger and heartbreak and fear surging in him.

He is watching a red blade spear through Han’s back, he is watching Han fall in gray smoke, he is hearing Chewbacca wail, he is feeling his heart stop, he is feeling a part of himself disappear into the abyss with his father’s body.

_Not Mom, too._

Ben reignites his lightsaber, the sound causing Bail to turn away from the sky, to look back at Ben.

Bail’s eyes widen at what he sees.

* * *

Rey and Jannah have spent hours and hours sparring together. They have teamed up against Ben and Finn, or sometimes just Ben, and sometimes just Finn. The goal of these exercises was to learn how to fight against multiple opponents. The goal was to learn how to fight _together,_ how to rely on the other’s strengths, how to accommodate the other’s weaknesses.

In the halls of the Jedi Temple, Rey and Jannah duel as one.

When Rey lunges forward, Jannah steps back, swinging her sword over Rey’s spine to defend her against Fallow’s retaliatory strike. When Jannah leaps into the air, kicking off an ornate chandelier to land behind Evoleth, Rey distracts him from stretching back to intercept Jannah mid-leap. They keep the two Knights of Ren in between them, forcing the Knights to stand back-to-back, with nowhere to go, contending with a dual-bladed sword of emerald and two other swords of gold and white.

 _Watch Fallow’s right foot,_ Rey calls, warningly. He’s tensing his knees slightly, as if preparing to kick out.

 _I see it,_ Jannah calls. She drops into a crouch, taking her white lightsaber in a reverse-handed grip, bringing it and her own foot forward in an attempt to knock Fallow down. He yelps, and jumps back, smacking into Evoleth’s back.

Rey takes the opportunity.

Evoleth stumbles, knocked off-balance by his comrade, and his right arm flies loosely at his side, and Rey cuts it off above the elbow, nearly to his shoulder, with a _cho mai_ move. Evoleth’s arm and lightsaber fall to the floor.

He _screams._

Rey is thrown back as a wave of purple energy erupts out of him. Fallow and Jannah are also thrown, the two toppling off a balcony to disappear to the mezzanine below. Rey reaches out, frantic, and finds Jannah’s Force presence still strong and sure, if a bit winded.

Evoleth moans, collapsed on his knees. He cannot cradle his amputated limb, as Rey has severed his arm too thoroughly to be touched by his remaining arm. Rey scrambles to her feet, holding her lightsaber parallel to her body.

“Evoleth,” Rey whispers. _“Hansa.”_

He looks up at her. His tawny eyes are shining, thick with pain.

She walks to him, until she’s standing just in front of him. Rey raises her arm, offering him her hand.

“Let me help you,” she murmurs. She thinks of Bail, five years ago, and how pleading and fearful he looked in the throne room.

Rey’s compassion, her capacity for kindness, has always awed Ben. Though Ben is often the kindest person Rey knows, he has limits; his softness only goes so far. And Rey, it seems, does not. She will offer this Sith Lord her hand. She’ll offer him gentleness.

Evoleth stares at her.

 _“Meistras,”_ he whispers, purple flickering in his eyes, and Rey frowns, as she thinks it’s Sith but she doesn’t recognize the word. _“Tarnas nun.”_ And then Evoleth’s lip curls, and Rey’s stomach drops. “My Master is coming for you now.”

“I’m not afraid of Kylo Ren,” Rey says.

Evoleth rises, and Rey takes a few quick steps back, positioning her lightsaber defensively in front of her.

“Not Kylo Ren,” Evoleth snarls. _“The Darkstaff.”_

A tendril of purple smoke slips around the corner of the archway behind him.

Rey turns, and runs.

* * *

There is no anger, no rage in the galaxy, quite like the anger of the child defending their parent.

When Ben slips into Juyo again, he does it with the feeling of surrender. He does it like a diver disappearing into a calm lake. He does it with the knowledge that not only does it need to be done, need to happen, but that Ben wouldn’t have it any other way.

As with his decision to use Force Rend against the Terentatek on Pasaana, Ben fights now with the knowledge that he wants to do it. He wants to crush. He wants to kill.

The Force _coils_ inside him.

 _Breathe,_ Ben thinks, and it could be his voice, or it could be Luke’s, from any number of lessons. _Just breathe._

But Ben is beyond needing simple _breath._

What he needs is to rid the galaxy of the darkness that has stained it. What he needs is to _feel,_ to let himself feel, to let his emotion surge out of him. What he needs is to destroy any threat to the last family member, the last Organa-Solo-Skywalker, who has stayed with him.

As Rose Tico once said: He’s saving what he loves.

At the cost of Bail.

Bail, who Ben is determined to _not_ love.

Ben _snarls,_ his breaths sharp and acidic, feeling almost like he is inhaling ash with each step. He can barely see Bail, can only really sense him as a dark thing, a red beam of plasma swirling around him as an extra limb. The red is spasming, trembling, knocked away, knocked aside, again and again, by a dark blue sword that rings with fury and righteousness.

“Is this it?” Ben demands, and he doesn’t sound like himself, he cannot recognize himself in the fury that has turned his voice to charcoal, leaving black scratch marks in its wake. “Is this where we were meant to be?”

Bail stumbles, brown eyes wide, and alarmed.

“Ben,” he tries, but Ben is not having it, he is not having any of it, not anymore.

That boy who could be cowed by his brother’s voice, his brother’s pleading; that boy died with Han.

In the snow on Ilum, when Ben’s heart was on fire, and he looked at the sneering man who wore his brother’s face and he said, _“You killed Dad. I can’t forgive that.”_

But Ben blinks, and he hears Chewbacca, the day after.

_“I think your father would forgive Bail. And I think you are your father’s son.”_

Ben shoves the memory away.

This is going to _end,_ and then--

And then--

He wields the spare lightsaber in a reverse-handed grip, twisting back. Bail parries this swing away, ducking under the other lightsaber Ben carries, forcing Ben to contort his body to protect his back from meeting the red fire of Bail’s lightsaber. Bail shoves him forward with a Force push, and Ben huffs, stumbling, dropping the spare lightsaber. It clatters to the stone floor.

Ben spins, and his Force push is stronger, and Bail falls down.

“Get _up,_ Bail,” Ben snarls. 

Bail stumbles to his feet.

With one hand, Ben swings his lightsaber forward, and Bail catches his wrist, moving his own right hand forward with his red sword, and Ben mirrors him. It’s the two of them then, heads bent, clinging to the other’s hands, as blue fire and red sparks litter the air around them.

It is Bail’s skin against Ben’s for the first time in five years.

And then Bail gasps, and lets go of Ben’s wrists, and Ben swings back, and with his free hand, he _punches_ Bail straight across the face.

The blow shocks Bail, sends him to the stone, collapsing on his knees. His red lightsaber spins away, and Ben stretches his free arm out, and his brother’s sword flies into his hand. He stands there, a lightsaber in each hand, staring down at Bail.

“Was it _worth it,_ Bail?” Ben snarls, and he’s practically spitting fire, he’s so angry, so heartbroken, burning up with ragged emotion. He wishes to crawl out of his own skin. “Everything? Was it worth it, worth this? How does your power feel?”

Bail is panting. He’s flexing the fingers of his hands, and Ben stares, because they are bright red, like he’s recently been burned. When Bail lifts his head, there is an angry red singe mark on his cheek, where Ben’s knuckles had hit his skin.

The fire in Ben’s veins has burned him, just as it set Bail’s staterooms on fire, just as his palms turned yellow as he fought Bail off in the _Millennium Falcon._

_“Even suns burn out.”_

Bail stares up at Ben.

“What…” he gasps. “What’s… happened to you?”

Ben extinguishes Bail’s lightsaber, and punches him again.

_“Obi-Wan was as good as a brother to me,” Anakin says. “Though he was sixteen standard years older than me, it often felt like we’d never been apart. And then on a planet of fire and black sand, Obi-Wan tore me apart and left me to die. And in doing so, he turned his own heart to ash.”_

_“It was a cruel thing,” Ben murmurs. “To make him do that. You know he would’ve done anything else, if there was another choice.”_

_“There is always a choice.”_

Bail is prone, and unarmed. His skin is burned. His breaths are coming in disjointed gasps. Ben can barely hear him or see him in the throes of his own rage.

_Snoke, the Voice, staring down at him, a holographic horror: “What is it you want, Ben?”_

_“I want,” Ben says, “To be able to forgive my choices.”_

Bail stares at him, and there is more than just shock in his face, something more Ben cannot bear.

Ben hits him again.

_Rey looks up at him with warm brown eyes, eyes Ben has searched for, eyes Ben has loved. “No one’s ever really gone.”_

This is it; this is the end. Bail, as a bloodied mass at Ben’s feet.

_“Ben,” Luke says, studying him, frowning in the dark light, the pouring rain. “Remember how to forgive. You must remember this.”_

Ben begins to tremble.

Bail speaks.

“Do it,” he whispers. “Do it, Ben.”

_“Am I not my brother’s keeper?” sneers Bail._

The explosions, the cannons, the battle overhead, all feels oddly muted.

Ben stares at his brother.

_“Ben,” Obi-Wan says, gently. “Consider that time and memory are the same thing. Consider that if for one moment, your brother is reaching for you, then that moment can exist immortally.”_

There is only Ben and Bail, and the carnage they have brought on each other.

_Bail swallows. His eyes shine in the moonlight. The two six-year-old boys lie on their sides in the dark, facing each other, and their smallest expressions are so similar it sometimes seems there is a mirror in between them._

_Like an instinct, as sure and ancient as brotherhood, Bail grabs for Ben’s hand, squeezing it tightly._

_“He told me to not be afraid.”_

Brown eyes meet brown eyes.

_“You have a good heart, Ben,” Han says. “And it ain’t a weakness.”_

Ben’s heart races in his chest.

_“Promise me something. Promise me that whatever you do, whatever you become… Promise me that it will always be your choice.”_

And Ben--

Ben drops the twin lightsabers.

And then Ben Organa-Solo, Master of the New Jedi Order, falls to his knees, and begins to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Meistras, Tarnas nun" : Sith for "Master, Help me"
> 
> It's funny because part of why I started this AU was because I never got to write about lightsabers in the Nonsense... and now that I'm here, writing action scenes with lightsabers SUCKS. It's hard.
> 
> "The gift of memories / An awful curse" is a lyric from ["Stable Song"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_9toZqXJqs) by Death Cab for Cutie.
> 
> Whoever had "Ben talks a big game but no way could that sensitive idiot kill his brother", you win the betting pool. There will be more in the next few chapters about this.


	19. One More Try

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I love you. I can't help it."

Rey sprints through the ruins of the Jedi Temple. At first, she thinks the ringing in her ears is due to her panic over the Darkstaff being after her, but she soon realizes the ringing is coming organically, from outside her head: the Jedi and the Knights of Ren are no longer the only fighters in the Temple.

She looks over the edge of a balcony, and sees a battle below.

Resistance soldiers, identifiable by their plain clothes, tans, greens, blues, earthy pastel tones, scramble over fallen columns and archways like ants. Stormtroopers, the common ones adorned in the classic white armor, are having a more difficult time traversing the awkward battlefield; Finn had told her once how the helmets can restrict one’s vision.

And then there are the droid-men, recognizable in the bright red armor, completely headless. There is code of some kind on their screens where a head would be, but Rey can’t recognize the language of it. Probably orders for the droid-men, she assumes.

“Hey!  _ Hey!” _

Rey’s heart drops at the familiar voice, and she looks down.

Finn stands in a doorway. His lightsaber is lit in his hand, that familiar beam of yellow, and as Rey watches a few stormtroopers and droid-men spot him, and begin firing in his direction. Finn deflects the shots smoothly.

_ Finn, _ Rey calls, hurrying down the staircase, nearly tripping in her haste.  _ I’m coming-- _

_ Wait. _

She skids to a halt at the harshness in his voice.

_ For what? _ Rey asks. But she follows his order, and moves slowly, to peer around the doorway, hidden in shadow.

Finn has extinguished his lightsaber. He stands there, hands spread, and Rey sees that he’s raised his right arm, the arm covered in stormtrooper armor. In the darkness of the Temple, the neutral colors of Finn’s clothes, it stands out. She doesn’t need to see their eyes to know the stormtroopers are looking at him.

“My name is Finn,” he says. “But I was once called FN-2187.”

She understands, then, what he is trying to do.

Rey darts around the corner, running in the hall behind Finn. She races up another flight of stairs, her boots loudly clanging on the hard tile floors, drawing attention to herself. At the end of the hall, next to a statue of a Muun, she jumps off the ledge, landing on the floor below.

Rey straightens as the droid-men turn away from Finn to look at her. Most of them carry blasters, while some wield electrostaffs, laser axes, and riot control batons: the First Order’s best weapons against a lightsaber.

“Hello,” Rey says, grinning. “Let’s leave them to their meeting, shall we?”

They charge her.

She does not feel guilty for killing the droid-men. Though they carry human brains, Rey knows, without a doubt, that the humans who once lived in those brains would prefer death to living a half-life as a machine. She can’t imagine an existence like that. Finn and Jannah had been crushed by brainwashing, their individuality and personalities nearly obliterated, but they’d still retained their physical bodies, something that was often their only confirmation of their autonomy.

These droid-men don’t have that.

Rey’s emerald blades dip in and out of droid-men chest plates. Though she’d been warned in advance by Ben, the splash of blood that emerges with her sword causes her heart to skip a beat. Red drips on the dirty tiles under her feet, and the droid-men go down in waves of muffled screams, the raw noise of human agony.

_ I’m so sorry, _ Rey thinks.  _ I hope you can find peace now. I hope the next life will be kinder to you. _

There are a  _ lot _ of droid-men. And while Rey is good, and fast, she’s just one Jedi. She knows Finn is busy with the stormtroopers, she knows Jannah is likely still dueling Fallow Ren, she has no idea where Celosia Ren has gone off to, Evoleth is likely searching for Rey with the Darkstaff in tow--

But where the hell are Ben and Bail?

* * *

Ben buries his face in his hands.

His body is trembling all over, nearly violently. He cannot stop sobbing, the noise coming out of him as the sound of shrapnel in a speeder wreck. Though he felt quite warm a moment ago, felt burning hot, he feels cold now. He feels like there is a hollow pit inside him that has recently been revealed, a tattered tarp over it pulled away, exposing the nothingness within.

Above him, the sky roars with violence.

The turmoil in Ben’s heart matches it.

_ I can’t do it, _ Ben thinks, a confession and a prayer to the Jedi whose Temple he kneels in.  _ I thought I could. I tried. _

_ “What I am striving to get at,” Leia says, “is that I don’t want you to try anymore.” _

Ben chokes on a bitter laugh.

_ Well, Mom… I tried, and I failed. So there’s that. _

The shame is gutting. He can only weep, in the Temple of the Jedi, knowing he has failed them, the dead Jedi whose work he has sworn to carry on. Here he is, was, with the prime opportunity of gutting a Sith Lord, and he could not raise his sword against him. The galaxy has trembled with the horror of the Dark Side, and Ben Organa-Solo, supposed Jedi Master, couldn’t do it. He couldn’t bear it.

“... Ben?”

His voice comes from somewhere far away, somewhere that is much further than two feet.

Ben wipes his face with his sleeve.

And then he rests his hands on his thighs, and looks at his brother.

Bail, Ben thinks, has never looked more bewildered. His face is battered and bruised, bright red in the places where Ben punched him, a charred red, like a burn. There is a hole in the knee of his black trousers, and his hair is askew and messy.

His eyes stare at Ben, and they are only brown.

Ben offers him a bitter, despairing smile.

“I love you,” Ben says. He shakes his head, feeling cold tears stream down his warm face. “I can’t help it. It stopped making sense a long time ago. And I thought, considering all the horror and murder you’ve committed, that at some point, I’d just… stop. I thought I did, too, when I found out you strangled Rey. And part of me… Bail, part of me was so  _ relieved. _ I was so glad to know I did have a limit. I was so glad to think I could finally do it, I could finally kill you, and maybe this war would be over. We’d get to the end, at last.”

Bail stares at him, unblinking.

“Maybe this was the real reason why the Jedi forbade attachments,” Ben muses. “For the times when a Jedi would have to kill someone they loved. Maybe this happened more often than any of us know. Maybe… Maybe we’re only doomed to do it, over and over again.”

_ Time, _ Ben thinks,  _ is a flat circle. _

In a world of black sand and lava, Anakin Skywalker fell to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan picked up his sword, and carried it with him to Tatooine, and gave it to Luke Skywalker. And then Anakin cut off Luke’s hand, a mirror of his own long-ago injury, and the lightsaber was lost, until it found its way to the hands of a scavenger girl, who would fall in love with Anakin’s grandson. And the girl would wield that fractured crystal in her own lightsaber while the man named for Obi-Wan fights the brother who idolized Anakin, in the building Obi-Wan and Anakin grew up in.

And then Obi-Wan/Ben tries to kill Anakin/Bail, and he can’t do it.

“I don’t know what to do,” Ben whispers. He tilts his head up, to the war torn sky.

_ Help me, _ Ben thinks.  _ Anyone. Tell me what to do. Please give me the strength to do it. _

The sky offers no advice. The Temple’s ghosts remain silent.

He turns his head back to Bail.

“I don’t have your ambition,” Ben murmurs. “I don’t have your strength, or your surety. You’ve never been uncertain of your path, have you?”

He does not expect an answer.

But Bail gives him one; he shakes his head.  _ No. _

“I always admired that about you,” Ben whispers. 

With great effort, he gets to his feet. He feels drained, and exhausted. Less, he thinks, from physical exhaustion, and more from the emotional toll of the day.

He picks up his lightsaber, but leaves Bail’s on the stone ground.

“Why did you say that,” Ben says. “‘Do it’? Why did you ask me to kill you? You’re on the precipice of winning this war. With the Darkstaff, you’ll take the galaxy. Why unearth the Darkstaff, if you don’t get to use it as you wish?”

Bail looks at the ground.

Ben shakes his head.

He’s begun to walk away, has made the decision to not turn back, but Bail speaks, and Ben stops in his tracks.

He never could deny his brother.

“Do you know why I wanted the Darkstaff, Ben?” Bail asks.

Ben turns around.

Bail remains on his knees. But his hands are folded almost primly in his lap, and his eyes are turned down, to where Ben left his lightsaber on the ground.

“Time travel,” Ben says.

Bail’s eyes flicker up, surprised. “Yes. Do you know when I wanted to go to?”

“I could guess,” Ben says. “My first guess would be during the Imperial Era, when Vader and Palpatine ruled the galaxy. You could commune with them, seek their counsel, finally get that seal of approval from that shell that was Anakin Skywalker.”

Bail flinches. Ben has more to say.

“Or perhaps further back,” Ben muses. “When Palpatine was the Chancellor of the Republic. You could get a first-hand look at how to turn a Republic into an Empire, how to facilitate a regime change so smoothly it’s years before the galaxy figures out what happened. Or, maybe  _ way _ back, to a time when the Sith walked the galaxy freely? When they controlled entire worlds and cultures? You could even watch them build the Darkstaff, if you wanted. What a treat.”

Ben’s voice is dry.

He’s just so, so done.

“Or would you go into the future?” Ben asks. “Check out the galaxy you rule? Might be nice. You could see your fancy little throne, the droids carrying the brains of a million harvested humans doing your bidding, the Knights of Ren functioning as their own Sith Order. Not to mention--”

“Ben,  _ shut up, _ you fucking  _ idiot,” _ Bail spits.

Ben is so surprised by Bail’s vicious interruption that he forgets to be offended at the insult.

“What?” he says, instead.

Bail glares at him.

“I wanted the Darkstaff so I could go back in time to undo my biggest mistake,” Bail snaps. “Can you be a little smarter and  _ figure out _ that one?”

Ben rolls his eyes.

“I can think of a few,” Ben says. “You massively fucked up the Battle of Crait, you snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in an almost impressive way. Starkiller Base got blown up almost immediately after it was unleashed on the galaxy. And last year, the First Order should have taken Felucia handedly, but that got screwed up somehow, and the Resistance outlasted you there--”

Bail groans.  _ “Force, _ Ben, how can…”

It is Bail’s turn to bury his face in his hands. For a moment, Ben thinks Bail is simply angry, frustrated with Ben’s apparent incompetence at sussing out his Sith Lord brother’s biggest mistake.

“I forgot,” Bail says at last, shaking his head. “Somehow, I forgot how you’re just… like this.”

“Like what?”

“I forgot that you’ve never understood your value,” Bail says. “I forgot that you’ve never known what you mean to other people, that you’re always downplaying yourself, that you can be so kriffing surprised when anyone says anything nice about you. How are you still like this, Ben? How do you not  _ know?” _

_ “Ben,” Luke says, kindly. “I don’t think you’ve ever understood what you are.” _

“I don’t…” Ben trails off, absolutely lost.

“I know I own a lot of blame in it,” Bail murmurs, still speaking to the ground, head bowed. “Why you’re like this. Hell,  _ Rey _ told me as much five years ago, about how you were being reticent about the Force, but I guess I just thought that, after all this time, maybe you’d have… I don’t know. Grown out of it? I mean,  _ look _ at you, Ben. Look at what you’ve accomplished.”

Ben is starting to think he’s missing something here. That Bail veered off-ramp a while back in this conversation and Ben still thinks they’re on the highway.

“And I haven’t exactly… given you a lot of clues, I guess,” Bail continues. “I see how you don’t know. But you  _ couldn’t _ know, I had to get it right, I had to--”

“I couldn’t know  _ what?” _ Ben demands, voice rising with his confusion. “What should I have known?”

Bail sighs, and raises his head, to look at Ben.

And he looks…

He looks like Ben’s brother.

“My biggest mistake,” Bail says, “Was walking away from you the night the Temple on Devaron burned. My biggest mistake has always been leaving you, Ben.”

* * *

With the help of the Resistance, Rey is able to hold the droid-men at bay. She runs into Rose during this fight, and the surprising sight of her friend among the rubble of the Jedi Temple almost causes Rey to trip over a fallen bit of stone column.

“Rey!” Rose screeches, and she dives forward, ducking through a balustrade, to throw herself into Rey’s arms. “Hey! You’re alive!”

“Um, yes,” Rey says, weirdly slowly for such a basic question. “How’d you get here?”

Rose shrugs, a blaster in each hand. “Followed the tide. How’s it going?”

“Um…”

None too gently, Rey plants a hand between Rose’s shoulder blades and shoves her to the dirty ground, leaning over to deflect two lasers with her lightsaber before they can settle into Rose’s back. Rose remains curled under her as Rey catches a couple lasers with her bare palm, before using a Force shove to send a few droid-men flying into the walls with unpleasant crunching sounds.

Rose straightens.

“Going like that,” Rey says. “You haven’t seen Ben anywhere, have you?”

“No. Should--”

She is forced to break off, as a new battalion of droid-men arrive.

Standing at their front, red lightsaber in hand, is Celosia Ren. Her robes are dirty, the elegant velvet black stained with soil and smoke, singed in a few places, and there’s a fresh scratch on her cheek. But her eyes are hard and determined, and Rey can feel the way the Force coils darkly around her.

Rey stretches a hand out, palm down, and Rose follows the silent direction. She hurries away, a handful of droid-men chasing after her. Rey stretches her lightsaber behind her body at a perpendicular angle, while she moves her free hand forward, holding it in front of her.

Celosia Ren smiles. She raises her red lightsaber, holding it slashed in front of her body, a common opening stance.

“Hello, Scavenger,” she coos, that nauseating, cutting tone of voice she used five years earlier, when she stood across from Rey in the snow on Ilum, when Rey’s heart was about to exit her chest with the horror and fear that was running wild through her veins. “I’ve been wondering when we would cross blades.”

They’ve never actually fought before. Ben has fought Celosia, as has Finn, but Rey has always wound up with someone else to duel.

“Dreading, I assume you mean,” Rey says. She digs the toes of her boots into the fine layer of dust and dirt under her feet.

Celosia laughs. “You’ve been spending too much time with Ben.”

Rey stills. “How do you mean?”

“Your threats are… pedestrian. Ben was always such a shy, sensitive boy. He could never quite muster up the wildness or menace a fight needed. Which is such a shame, because he’s really quite… dangerous, isn’t he, when he wants to be?”

Rey knows she is being goaded. She knows Celosia is picking at her, searching for what Rey is most possessive of, what she will strive to keep her own: and that’s Ben, and what they have.

So she shrugs at Celosia, looking into the other woman’s big green eyes, green lined with flickering purple light.

“Your threats need work, too,” Rey says. “They’re a bit  _ childish, _ aren’t they? Have we not grown up yet, Vesper?”

Celosia blinks. And then she scowls.

Before she can rattle off a retort, Rey breaks into a run, and Celosia meets her halfway.

Celosia Ren is  _ fast, _ fast like Rey is fast, and Rey remembers Ben telling her once that her fighting style most reminded him of Celosia’s, when she was the Jedi called Vesper. Celosia has a kind of scrappiness that Rey had considered to be her own brand, and she can’t help but wonder where Celosia picked up that style. Rey’s quirky style is thanks to a childhood fighting tooth and nail for every scrap; as far as she knows, Celosia Ren didn’t grow up that way.

Rey strikes up with one end of her emerald sword, twisting on the spot to shove Celosia’s answering strike downward. Celosia barely has time to catch the retaliatory strike from the other blade of Rey’s lightsaber before Rey is pummeling her again.

As they fight, Rey keeps one part of her mind out, focusing on the other Jedi. She can feel Finn clearly and closely, on the other side of this great hall. Jannah is a bit further away, but just as bright.

Ben… Ben is still. Wherever he is, whatever he’s doing: it’s like he’s frozen in place.

Before she can panic over the possibilities of this, she feels it: that awful, Dark aura, the taste of something decrepit and expired on her tongue. She practically chokes on the feeling, as nausea slithers up her throat.

To her surprise, she is not the only one affected. Celosia stumbles, nearly clipping her shoulder on her own lightsaber blade.

“Kriff,” she grumbles. “I hate that thing.”

Rey stares at her, lowering her lightsaber slowly.

_ What? _

And then something even stranger happens, stranger than Celosia’s comment about the Darkstaff.

A droid-man lifts his blaster, and fires a laser at the Knight of Ren. There is no doubt in Rey’s mind he was aiming for Celosia, who is standing about two feet away from Rey. And it is similarly obvious to her that Celosia was not prepared to be shot at by her comrades, as the shot lands in her abdomen, and she drops to the floor with a quiet gasp, her lightsaber tumbling out of her hand.

Perhaps it is only the unexpected move by the droid-man to shoot his own comrade; perhaps it is Rey needing a moment to gather her thoughts; or perhaps it is the pain in the suddenly solid green eyes that blink at Rey from behind blonde bangs.

Whatever it is, it has Rey lifting her hand, turning to the buttresses over their heads, sturdy arches in between stone columns, and  _ pulling. _

Stone falls, and the droid-men scream and yell, hurrying away as Rey drops to her knees. She presses her hands on the stone floor, spreading her fingers, and calls on the Force, the raw potency of it, gurgling from the Light Side nexus a short distance away.

_ Protect us, _ Rey thinks.

A blue globe of pure Force energy materializes around Rey and Celosia, curving around them silently, muffling the sound of the battle outside, and saving them from falling rubble.

Celosia stares at Rey. “A Protection bubble?”

“Yep,” Rey says, reaching forward, to where Celosia has her hand pressed to her stomach. “Let me--”

Celosia jerks away. “What are you  _ doing?” _

“I was thinking of healing you!”

“But, I’m--”

“A Knight of Ren,” Rey replies. “A Dark Sider. A member of the First Order. Yes, you are. But I don’t think you’re a Sith, Vesper.”

As she speaks, she touches Celosia’s blood-covered hand, moving with purpose and gentle touch. She can feel the Knight trembling under her fingers.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Celosia whispers. But the green in her eyes is clearer.

Rey slips her hand under Celosia’s, feeling the Knight’s stuttered breathing.

She thinks of the snake in the desert of Pasaana, how it hissed and spit at her, struggling with its deep pain.

“I think you’re a woman trying to create a galaxy she can stand to live in,” Rey murmurs. “I think you’re a girl who once loved her friends and classmates, and I think you’re still trying to find a place to put that love, now that so many of them are gone. I think you were once a great friend of Ben’s, and I think you still wish to be.”

Soft, pale blue light slips through Rey’s fingers. Celosia--Vesper--gasps at the touch. Tears sparkle in her eyes.

Rey thinks of the way the snake’s skin healed, how it slithered away in peace.

“More than anything,” Rey continues, “I think you know that unearthing the Darkstaff was a mistake.”

Ben had said as much, during his brief recount of his time with Vesper on Mustafar.

Tears drip down Vesper’s pale face.

“Is that it?” she whispers. “Is that why you’re being so kind to me? So I can help you?”

Rey looks at Vesper.

_ “My son told me once,” Leia muses, “That his father would not condemn me for clinging to my hope that Bail could be turned. So I will tell you the same now: Do not feel guilty for choosing to believe in the better parts of people. For most of us, that is an impossible thing, so we can only react to it with fear and denial. Do not blame yourself for being able to rise above the kind of cynicism and doubt that plagues my brother and my son; it is something that makes you truly special.” _

And Rey offers Vesper her kindest, best smile.

Hansa turned down her kindness, but Rey does not think Vesper will.

“I think I see a lot of myself in you, Vesper Tille,” Rey says. “In your fighting style, and your anger, and the fact that neither of us have ever wanted to harm Ben Organa-Solo. And I think, if our positions were reversed… That you would offer this kindness to me, too. I think you would give me another chance.”

Vesper hiccups a sob.

Rey pulls her hand away, and the two women look at Vesper’s neat, perfectly healed skin.

Vesper swallows, hard, and looks back up at Rey.

“There is no pain,” Rey whispers. “There is grace.”

Vesper Tille’s eyes are a beautiful mossy green.

Rey offers her hand to Vesper, who doesn’t even hesitate.

She takes it.

* * *

Ben has experienced a lot today. A lot in the past twenty-four standard hours. A lot this past week.

These periods of time have all felt like entire lifetimes.

But this, this. Bail telling him that his biggest mistake to date was leaving Ben that night the Temple burned, a choice he regrets so deeply he unearthed the most evil artifact in the galaxy to try and rectify it?

Ben ages ten lifetimes in a minute.

“What,” he says, and stops, because he has no idea what to say.

Bail manages to stand, wincing a bit as he does.

“Kriff, Ben,” he mutters. “You can really punch.”

Ben does not bother to reply to that. He waits, instead, as Bail straightens. He watches as Bail pushes his dark hair out of his eyes, as he flexes his hands, checking for any sprains. He presses a hand to his chest, wincing a little where Ben had kicked him.

“I decided to find the Darkstaff,” Bail says, gathering what Ben is waiting for, “So I could travel back in time and prevent myself from leaving you on Devaron.”

“The night you burned down the Temple,” Ben says, numbly. “The night you killed our classmates, and went to Snoke, and sent Luke into exile--”

“He tried to  _ kill me--” _

“I know!” Ben yells. “He told me.”

“Oh.” Bail frowns, surprised. He uses the hem of his tunic to wipe his face, grimacing as he does so. “Ben, what’s wrong with your hands? Why does it feel like you literally  _ burned _ me?”

Ben doesn’t have an answer for that.

He looks at his hands now, but sees nothing amiss with them.

“It’s happened only a few times,” Ben says, distracted now. “When we switched, and I was in your stateroom… I was so furious, I decided to burn it down, and just as I thought it, there was a flame in my hand. Like--”

“Pyrokinesis,” Bail says, nodding. “But you can’t just generate fire out of nowhere by thinking of it--”

“I know,” Ben snaps. “And then on the flight here, when you… When it seemed like we were switching, my hands started burning up. They turned yellow, and hot. And just now, with you… I was angry.”

It is the anger, Ben thinks, that is the catalyst.

“Angry,” Bail echoes. “Huh.”

Ben shakes his head, returning to the main revelation he’s grappling with.

“If that’s what you wanted the Darkstaff for,” Ben says, and he can’t really believe it, not at all, but keeps going anyway. “Then why haven’t you done it? You have it. It’s clearly powerful, and  _ eager _ to use that power.”

Bail sighs, running a hand over his face.

“Do you know what the Darkstaff needs to do to compel time travel?” Bail asks. “I didn’t know, not until I asked it. The texts we had were vague.”

Ben doesn’t, not really. While the Jedi were able to translate enough of the text to know the Darkstaff  _ could _ compel time travel,  _ how _ was another thing entirely. Finn’s efforts had deciphered something about the Darkstaff needing to destroy something, to cause something else to travel in time.

Ben tells Bail as much now.

“That isn’t wrong,” Bail says. “If the Darkstaff creates a Force Storm that’s capable of creating a hyperspace wormhole, that’ll then transport an individual across time and space to another location.”

Ben digests this.

He knew that about Force Storms, knew they could create wormholes, but he hadn’t realized they could cause someone to travel in time. All of his reading about Force Storms had focused on how incredibly dangerous they were, how unpredictable. It seems to be possible to become so powerful that one can master a Force Storm, but Ben would never ever dare try it, for so many reasons… Including that a Force Storm, unchecked and unleashed, can destroy worlds.

“You can’t,” Ben whispers, looking at Bail. “Force Storms are too dangerous! You could lose control, and entire systems can be sucked into one, lost forever, or obliterated entirely! It could easily be another Hosnian System, or--”

“I know. I can’t.”

Ben stills.

Bail’s lips twist. He looks at the ground.

There is shame, and self-loathing, and despair. Bail’s Force signature rings with it.

The cold chemical flame feels… Better, somehow. Something cool, to Ben’s scorching fire. Ben can only stand there, and stare, and think,  _ Maybe I haven’t failed just yet. Maybe… _

But then a spike of  _ fear, _ of primal, rabid fear, shakes Ben. He turns on the spot.

“Rey,” Ben whispers, and breaks into a sprint.

He runs out of the Force nexus room, emerging into a long hallway, as noises of battle, screams and wails and lasers, surround him. Smoke is thick in the air, and the smell of blood is noxious and cloying. Ben runs through it, fearlessly, to where Rey calls him.

And running at his side, his quiet, dark shadow, is Bail.

_ “The brightest light casts the darkest shadow, Ben.” _

* * *

Rey pulls Vesper to her feet, watching as she shakes her sleeves back, and runs a hand over her short blonde hair. She peers out of the Protection bubble, to where the droid-men have assembled outside it. They’re clearly waiting for them.

“Well,” Vesper murmurs. “I guess he’s decided to make his move now.”

“What are you talking about?” Rey asks.

While she’d been healing Vesper, a full battalion of droid-men had entered the Temple. But they aren’t going after the Resistance soldiers who are still plentiful in the building, squaring off against the droid-men who had followed them inside. Instead, they are surrounding Vesper and Rey in a circle, with the two lightsaber wielders inside.

Their blasters, laser axes, and electro-staffs are aimed at both of them.

_ What the hell is this? _ Rey thinks, utterly bewildered.

Vesper twirls her sword in her hand, raising it over her head, parallel to her spine. She faces the droid-men now; not Rey.

“Snap to it, Jedi,” she says. “They’re here to kill both of us.”

She twists her head around, giving Rey a big, hungry  _ grin. _

Rey matches it with her own, and takes down the Protection bubble.

For the second time in her life, Rey finds herself fighting alongside a Dark Side warrior.

Vesper Tille, Celosia Ren, turns her back to Rey, facing one side of the droid-men that surround them. Instinctively, Rey spins on the spot, twirling her lightsaber in front of her in a slashing position, placing her back to Vesper as well. The two of them stand there, in an oddly calm truce. Rey can sense that Vesper isn’t interested in fighting her at the moment, can sense it just as clearly as anything else. Instead, she’s sizing up the droid-men, planning her attack route.

_ This is something else, _ Rey thinks.

She pushes the thought aside, because the droid-men are here, and she can feel the Darkstaff and Evoleth creeping ever closer, and Vesper isn’t a threat. For now.

In unison, the droid-men begin to fire their blasters.

Rey and Vesper move, emerald and ruby lightsabers catching the bolts and sending them back in the direction they were fired, or sending them into the architecture around them. Red light slams into cracked columns, scars the tiled floor, leaves dark singe marks in the once beautiful walls. Rey raises her hand to catch a bolt in her palm, while her other hand swings her lightsaber around, guarding both her sides at once. Behind her, Vesper freezes a few bolts in place, giving her time to deflect others, before letting them come back to her for her to deflect.

It is an automatic move, years of training alongside the Jedi, that has Rey hoisting her lightsaber and jabbing one of the blades backward, saving Vesper from getting a laser in her left hip. She turns to look at Rey after this, and there is a hint of wonder in her face.

“Not so bad, Jedi,” she says.

“I know,” Rey replies, and to her amazement, Vesper barks an airy laugh.

_ Maybe, _ Rey thinks,  _ we could really be friends, in another universe. _

Scorching, wild sunlight slams into Rey’s mind, a solar flare that is nearly dizzying in its intensity, and Rey looks around.

Ben stands just behind the droid-men, who have not yet seen him. His dark blue lightsaber is lit, but hangs limply at his side as he stares at the scene, the sight of Rey and Vesper protecting each other.

And next to him, standing in an identical position, with an identical expression, is Kylo Ren.

No;  _ Bail. _

Rey wishes she could press pause on this whole battle. She has a lot of questions.

Vesper has no such qualms.

“For fuck’s--” Vesper huffs, slashing her lightsaber forward, and using a Force push to knock the droid-men in front of Ben and Bail aside. “Don’t just  _ stand there, _ you  _ morons, _ help us!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I love you / I can't help it" lifted from a scene from SUPERNATURAL. Don't @ me.
> 
> I think of Vesper as someone who's always been desperate for approval and love. She wept the first night she was left on Devaron; she's been searching for acceptance and worthiness ever since. (As Ben noted once: It can be hard to raise a Force sensitive child). I think the Dark offered her the chance to overcome that weakness, like it once offered Rey. Vesper said yes; Rey said no.
> 
> (To quote the great FLEABAG: "I think you know how to love better than any of us. That's why you find it all so painful.")
> 
> I know you probably have a LOT of questions about what Bail is thinking, what's happened to make him "turn" like this (though there are hints in this story as to how he got here!), what Vesper was talking about when she said someone was making their move... We'll get there!


	20. Brothers In Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Come to me."

There is something dizzying and meteoric about the sight of Rey and Vesper fighting side by side. Or back-to-back, as it were. Ben stands there, mouth dropped, lightsaber useless at his side, trying to reckon with the sight before him. Rey is a whirlwind, as always, her emerald sword blurring as she moves. And Vesper is an inferno, snarling and vicious, a forest fire contained in a ruby lightsaber. Together, they are rebirth and destruction, and Ben has the faint feeling of thinking he had a dream about this, once.

Bail, undoubtedly fresh from his own miniature existential crisis, returns to the reality of the situation first.

“Right,” he says, and raises his spasming lightsaber, leaping into the fray with enthusiasm.

Ben follows, muted.

_ Rey, _ he reaches,  _ Rey, what the fuck-- _

_ Just go with it! _ Rey hisses in the back of his head.  _ And I could ask you the same thing! What happened with Bail? Is he… good now? _

Truthfully, Ben doesn’t know.

_ I think he wants to destroy the Darkstaff, _ he decides. It’s not a full answer, only gets at an aspect of the greater problem that is Kylo Ren / Bail Organa-Solo. But it’s the best Ben can offer. And possibly the most critical thing at this strange moment.

_ Yes, Vesper too, _ Rey says, and Ben registers her use of Celosia Ren’s real name.

Rey’s Force signature melts into a hum. Ben is certain that she knows it is not enough, knows there are a million questions to still be asked and answered, but like him she prioritises.

As Ben fights, taking down as many droid-men as he can, he reaches out for Finn and Jannah.

Jannah is a livewire of electricity, a bolt of white energy, and he finds her a level below, dueling with Fallow Ren.

“Bail,” Ben says, snapping his head around to find his brother, spotting him using one hand to keep five droid-men at bay with the Force while shoving another droid-man off the end of his sword. Bail looks at him with clear brown eyes, and Ben’s heart soars. “Get Lior up here. And tell him to stand down.”

He assumes the Knights of Ren use a Force meld like the Jedi, and does not bother to wait for an answer or comment.

_ Jannah, _ he calls instead, and feels her spark, her consciousness reacting.  _ Come back upstairs. With Fallow Ren. _

He pulls back before he can distract her further.

Ben moves forward, cleanly sliding his lightsaber into the chestplate of a droid-man in front of him, twisting back to grab the electrostaff of a droid-man who’d been coming up behind him. He can sense the electricity of the staff, but with the Force, he does not feel it, applying the same aspect of Control that has him catching lasers in his palm with no pain. He twists, yanking the electrostaff out of the droid-man’s hands and throwing it at the screen-head of another droid-man, who winces at the blow.

Rey is on top of the droid-man then, literally clambering up his back. His mechanical arms reach up, fumbling for her waist and thighs, but Rey kicks out at the small of his back, forcing the droid-man’s body to bend. The blade of her lightsaber slams into the droid-man’s pelvis, and he crumbles.

She brushes a few loose strands of hair out of her eyes, approaching Ben.

“Where’s Finn?” he asks, without pause.

He can feel Finn, keenly, as strong and sturdy as an ancient tree, at the back of his mind.

“He’s…” Rey pauses, looking at something over his shoulder. A small, awestruck smile grows on her face. “He’s rebelling.”

Frowning, Ben turns around.

He’s been aware of stormtroopers in the room, but in a distant way, as the droid-men are faster and sleeker and overall more demanding of his attention. The stormtroopers had been somewhat segregated, too, in this massive Great Hall of the Jedi, and Ben had been focused on getting to Rey and avoiding the Darkstaff more than anything else.

But now he sees the stormtroopers. But he sees them as he never has before.

He sees them unmasked.

Men and women, all close to the ages of Ben’s Jedi, run through the Old Temple of the Jedi. Some of them have removed all of their armor, leaving them in the plain black shirt and trousers Ben recalls seeing on Finn five years earlier. Others have removed only some parts, including leg coverings and chest plates. But all of them have taken off their helmets, revealing faces, of all races and sexes, with clear eyes full of determination.

At the forefront, fighting alongside them, is Finn.

His smile could ignite several stars.

“Finn!” Rey calls, beaming. “You did it!”

His stormtrooper rebellion, five years in the making. Years of strategy, and study. Years of making friends, of sharing his story, of campaigning publicly. It’s come to this.

Finn sprints to Rey and Ben, who duck down behind a pillar for cover.

“It’s happening all over,” he says, proudly. “Cars called and told me. They’re revolting all around the planet, and up in the Star Destroyers, too. I think the droid-men were the last straw. It really forced them to reckon with their expendability in the eyes of the First Order. They see how long-term survival isn’t possible with the First Order, that our best hope for a future is with the Resistance overthrowing it.”

“Exactly!”

The three of them spin around to see Jannah, jumping gracefully over the catastrophe that is the battlefield within the Temple. Behind her is Lior, moving much more slowly, with a kind of dazed expression, staring hard at the forms of Bail and Vesper, who immediately go to his side, each taking an arm, speaking to him with quick words Ben can’t hear. But if he had to guess, he’d guess they are trying to pull him out of the Darkstaff’s grasp, like Ben did with Vesper on Mustafar, and like Ben and Rey have somehow done earlier with Bail and Vesper here.

Jannah skids to a halt, and Rey steadies her with an arm around her waist. For a moment, all Ben can do is look at them, these three Jedi. Finn has shed his jacket at some point in the battle, standing instead with his long-sleeved green pullover that’s stained with ash. Rey has a bruise forming at her temple, and small cuts dotting her partially wrapped arms. And Jannah is sweating, her black skin shiny, though her eyes are wide with wonder and joy.

He is so, so proud of them.

“Downstairs, when I was with Fallow Ren,” Jannah explains. “I saw them turn on the droid-men, it was  _ amazing. _ But what’s this about the Knights of Ren standing down? Did I catch that right?”

“Yes,” Ben says. “I don’t… quite know how to explain--”

“We have a common enemy.”

It is always strange, Ben thinks, to be interrupted by his own voice. More so now, since it hasn’t happened in so long. Stranger more for the Jedi save for Rey, who’ve never experienced the phenomenon that is Bail and Ben talking to each other.

Bail walks to them, calmly, brushing his dark hair out of his eyes. Vesper and Lior trail him, their black robes abandoned, revealing surprisingly plain black outer clothes, simple tunics and belts. Lior’s yellow eyes repeatedly move from Bail to Ben and back, while Vesper looks more irritated than anything else. For a moment, it is so dazedly familiar, hitting Ben as a bit of distorted memory. If he blinks, he can see the sun on Devaron, glimpse Vesper’s long blonde braid and Lior’s pimple-studded skin, and hear Bail’s loud laugh.

But then he blinks, and he’s back in the midst of a battle in the Temple of the Jedi.

“The Darkstaff,” Rey prompts, and Bail nods curtly.

“It’s…” he pauses, shaking his head. “We have to take it down. Once it’s destroyed--”

“The droid-men fall too,” Ben finishes.

Vesper frowns at him.  _ “Droid-men?” _

“What are they called?”

“Sithtroopers,” Bail says. “Hux’s pet project. He’s been working on it, ever since--”

And here Bail breaks off, looking guiltily at Finn, who arches an eyebrow.

“Ever since I defected?” he asks, dryly.

“You and some others,” Bail says, glancing at Jannah, who gives him the most sarcastic salute Ben has ever seen. Lior chokes on a stilted laugh. “Right. Hux quickly realized that with the Darkstaff, he’d actually be able to unite the Sithtroopers under him. It has the power to control warriors under a--”

“Sith Lord, we know,” Ben interrupts. “But if they’re Hux’s project, why are they trying to kill the Knights of Ren?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Vesper asks, scathingly. “Just as the stormtroopers are rebelling, Hux is rebelling. He wants to take us out so he’s got the Darkstaff all to himself.”

Ben recalls Vesper’s words to him on Mustafar; about how the Knights of Ren knew immediately that it was Bail who had killed Snoke, that Hux suspected it but had never been able to get proof. Evidently, he’s decided to forego the proof for a full out mutiny instead.

“In the middle of a battle?” Ben asks, alarmed.

Vesper shrugs. “I’m sure he’s hoping he can pass off the Supreme Leader’s death as happening at the hands of the Jedi. Plus… Well. The Darkstaff’s hold on him hasn’t made him any  _ wiser, _ or a better person.”

Ben supposes that’s fair.

“Does the Darkstaff not require a Force user to work it?” Jannah asks, aghast.

Lior shakes his head. “No. But there’s no way for a non-Force user to ever get out of the Darkstaff’s control. Hux will become little more than a puppet, not that he’ll  _ care. _ He just wants the total supremacy the Darkstaff will create for him. He’ll never need to build another Starkiller, not with the Darkstaff. And the Darkstaff will be all too pleased to have a sycophant eager to crush the galaxy.”

Ben looks at Bail with his sharpest, most disdainful glare.

Bail winces. “I know.”

Ben has a lot of thoughts, a lot to say.

_ It’s very rich you called me a fucking idiot, Bail, because I’m not the one who handed an evil, psychotic narcissist a weapon that would destroy the entire galaxy. _

_ This whole situation is absolutely absurd. _

_ Your First Order, your army, is trying to kill our mother right now. _

_ I still don’t understand how leaving me on Devaron could be your biggest mistake. _

“Wait a minute, we’re missing one,” Finn says, suddenly. “Where’s Evoleth Ren?”

Bail’s face shutters. Vesper, standing just behind him,  _ growls, _ and narrows her eyes at something behind the Jedi.

Ben turns around.

Standing on a balcony a floor above, is Evoleth Ren. Unlike the other Knights, who are all dishevelled, their robes long abandoned, Evoleth looks oddly immaculate, even with a prominently missing arm. He stands straight, almost serene, his red lightsaber strong and sure at his side.

And behind him, hovering ominously, is the Darkstaff, and all its pulsing purple light.

* * *

Rey looks away from the terrifying sight of the Darkstaff and an obviously powered-up Knight of Ren to look at Ben. His back is straight, and his face is perfectly smooth and calm as he studies Evoleth and the Darkstaff, appearing for all the world like he’s perusing a vaguely interesting text. 

Finn, meanwhile, turns around to scowl at Bail. “Guess not all of the Knights of Ren got the  _ destroy the Darkstaff _ message.”

“I can’t get through to him anymore, he’s blocking me out,” Bail murmurs. Now that she’s standing closer to him, Rey is better able to take in the sight of his face; he’s battered, bloodied, and bruised, looking like he’s gone ten rounds with a rancor. Or, judging by the broken skin and blood on Ben’s knuckles… His brother. 

“Or the Darkstaff is,” Fallow Ren says. Rey thinks she should probably start calling him Lior now. For a bit, at least.

“Probably some of both,” Vesper says. “He’ll team up with whoever or whatever he thinks has the best shot at killing Ben, or Rey for that matter.” Rey is so startled by Vesper using her actual name that she nearly misses her next sentence: “He’s still desperate for vengeance, for Ben killing…”

_ Qirin Ren.  _

_ Saffron. _

Vesper trails off, sorrow and anger darkening her face. Her eyes flicker to Ben, and Rey tenses, preparing for the attack, as Jannah does the same out of the corner of her eye. Lior has also stiffened, glaring darkly in Ben’s direction.

But neither Knight of Ren moves to attack.

Ben’s own grief and guilt is obvious to everyone. He takes a deep breath, briefly closing his eyes. Rey fights the instinct to take his hand, to offer him her comfort. She watches him instead, as he pulls himself together, turning his gaze on the Knights of Ren.

“I regret her death,” he says, quietly. “But I do not regret the reason I had to do it.”

_ Finn. _ Finn’s life was the reason, and they all know it. At Rey’s side, Finn lifts his chin, but doesn’t speak.

“I know,” Bail murmurs. “I know, Ben. It’s…”

He stops, a pained look crossing his face. At the same time, Vesper hisses, and Lior issues a soft little moan of hurt.

“What is it?” Ben asks, startled.

“The Darkstaff,” Bail whispers, and he looks back up, to the balcony. “It’s calling us.”

“Shut it out,” Ben snaps, and Rey’s pretty sure it isn’t quite that easy, but no one points this out. “Bail, how is it destroyed? How do we destroy it?”

“The texts weren’t very instructive on that part,” Vesper mutters.

Ben groans. “But what  _ did _ they say?”

_ “Irus,” _ Bail murmurs. “Light.”

And that was what the Sith texts had told the Jedi, too.  _ Massassi iv irus. _ Warriors of light.

Jedi.

They do not have any time to parse this out, to offer theories and open discussion. Rey feels the black nausea swell up in her, as the Darkstaff begins to float downwards, Evoleth Ren leading the way. He walks with a swagger, looking for all the world like a king traversing his castle, and not a Sith Lord darkening the halls of a Jedi Temple. The loss of his arm does not seem to be bothering him, not at the moment. The Darkstaff moves more slowly, its purple light emanating, flickering like the beacon of a lighthouse, casting long shadows on the dilapidated and peeling walls.

Jannah steps close to Rey’s side.

_ The droid-men, _ she calls, and Rey feels a perverse sense of pleasure at Jannah’s refusal to call them Sithtroopers.  _ They’re coming back here. _

Sure enough, the Jedi Temple has largely been cleared of stormtroopers and Resistance soldiers, the united factions moving the fight to the streets of the Senate District outside. Plentiful now are the droid-men, and Rey is sure they have been called here by the Darkstaff.

_ We should try to drive it back to the Force nexus room, _ Ben says.  _ We’ll need all the Light we can get. _

Rey has not yet seen this Force nexus, but Ben outlines a route to get there in her mind, for all the Jedi to see.

There is an odd shuddering feeling in her head, how she imagines the waters of a pond feel when a rock is unexpectedly dropped into it, and something cold and sleek and sparking enters Rey’s consciousness. She startles, is ready to launch her own mental attack, when she recognizes the frosted live wire. When she recognizes the Force presence.

It’s Bail, and his chemical flame.

The cold, devastating moon, to Ben’s hot, righteous sun. The two of them as the other’s mirror, even in the realm of the metaphysical consciousness.

Two other presences join Bail’s, and Rey recognizes them as well. The grasping, infuriating inferno that is Vesper. The frigid, magnetic tidal wave that is Lior. The Knights of Ren, linking up with the Jedi, the seven of them in the Force.

Rey’s head feels weirdly full.

They stand there, the Light and the Dark, as Evoleth and the Darkstaff reach them. Evoleth’s eyes flicker over the faces of his fellow Knights of Ren, and Rey catches a hint of doubt.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Evoleth,” Bail calls. “Evoleth… We have to stop this.”

His lip curls.

_ “We?” _ he echoes. “Who is this  _ we? _ You, my  _ Lord? _ Celosia, and Fallow? Or… you, Celosia, Fallow, and the  _ Jedi.” _ He takes his time, looking at each of them individually. Purple sparks seem to fall from him as he glares at Rey and Ben in particular. “Stop what, exactly, Kylo Ren?”

Bail’s eyes gravitate to the Darkstaff.

_ “Look what has happened to your so-called friends, Evoleth Ren,” _ the Darkstaff coos, in that oddly hypnotizing voice that causes a chill to run over Rey’s spine. At her side, Finn is biting his lip, determined to remain impassive.  _ “They’ve developed cold feet. They are not strong enough to take the power I have to offer. They fear it, they fear me. And soon… They will fear you as well.” _

“Evoleth!” Vesper yells. “Come on, this is madness! Think of what Qirin would want--”

It’s a mistake.

Rey knows it is, the second Vesper says the name of Evoleth’s dead lover. For Evoleth’s tawny eyes turn black, black like deep space, black like the total absence of light. His robes look comparatively pale. Instinctively, Jannah takes a step back. Evoleth is too focused on Vesper to pay her any attention.

“I know what Qirin would want,” he whispers. “Vengeance.”

With that said, he breaks into a sprint, charging straight at Ben.

Ben, whose face betrays nothing.

Ben, who doesn’t move as Evoleth approaches.

Just before Evoleth can reach him, just before Evoleth can raise his sword and cut Ben in half, Evoleth is knocked off his feet by an aggressive Force push. One that did not come from Ben, or Rey, or any of the Jedi.

As Evoleth slams into the floor with a  _ huff, _ Rey turns to look at Bail. He lowers his outstretched arm.

His expression is identical to Ben’s.

The twins look at each other then, and something in the Force  _ zips, _ something falling into place with a sigh. In unison, they turn, lifting their lightsabers in identical positions, to face the Darkstaff.

Five years earlier, in the base on D’Qar, Leia Organa had told Rey about her sons, Ben and Bail Organa-Solo. She had described them, their different yet complementary personalities, the way they could seemingly read the other’s mind. She had insisted that Rey go to Luke Skywalker to become a Jedi, because if Ben were to fall, if Ben were to join Kylo Ren, then Luke alone would never be able to defeat them. She had called her twins unstoppable together. 

Rey watches Ben and Bail Organa-Solo stand together against a common enemy.

And she sees, for the first time, just how right Leia was.

* * *

The Force is a conduit of memory.

This was one of the first lessons Ben was taught about the Force, back under the sun of Devaron, when he was seven years old, and had only ever known it as a vague thing to connect him to his family. Ben never truly appreciated how hard it must have been for Luke, to explain the Force to children. How do you define a cosmic entity, the essence that tethers all things together, when your students are still grappling with living on a planet so far from home, when they are still learning how to read, how to tie their shoelaces?

You go to the start: you engage with their first experiences of the Force.

For Ben and Bail: It was the recognition of the other.

The knowledge of not being alone, of understanding another’s presence, when your own perception of yourself as a thinking thing barely existed to begin with.

Ben was born never knowing loneliness, not when he’d always been with Bail.

Thirty years later, it is memory that guides Ben in this fight, with Bail at his side again, for the first time in so long. 

It is memory that has Ben spearing a droid-man with his lightsaber, while twisting to use his free hand to Force shove another droid-man before it can shoot Bail. It is memory that sees Bail diving forward, dipping under a droid-man’s arm to sever it, and then hurling that severed arm into the lens of a droid-man Ben is dueling. It is memory that has Bail ducking to avoid the lit lightsaber Ben throws, ducking without needing a vocal warning, ducking because he knows how Ben fights, knows his style, knows his movements. It is memory that has Ben abandoning a partially broken droid-man to take on another, because he knows Bail is right behind him to finish the job.

It is Ben and Bail, and a long ago Force vision partially realized.

The one where they stand united, and take on the galaxy together.

_ It should always have been this, _ Ben thinks.  _ Us, just like this. _

_ I know. _

It is Bail’s whisper in the back of Ben’s mind, the Force meld. Ben thinks he would’ve heard Bail regardless.

Nearby, Hansa duels Rey and Finn, the Chaos Twins working just as seamlessly as Ben and Bail. Ben only catches glimpses of them, of Rey’s braided hair, of Finn’s loose shirt, interspersed with beams of green and yellow. Hansa’s frustration is a rumbling starspeeder looking for just enough space to take off.

And on the perimeter, Jannah, Vesper, and Lior fight to prevent any additional droid-men from entering the Temple.

Meanwhile, the Darkstaff’s purple coils are everywhere. It lights up the droid-men, doubling their speed and agility, infusing them with the power of the Dark Side of the Force.

Slowly but surely, they move closer to the Force nexus.

_ There has to be more to the Darkstaff’s weakness than just Light, _ Ben thinks. 

_ Why? _ Vesper calls, her face scrunched in concentration. She drags her lightsaber straight down a droid-man, cleaving the body in two. Blood splashes the air around her.  _ That’s its antithesis. Makes sense. _

“But it’s not, not totally,” Ben murmurs, aloud this time.

The Darkstaff is the epitome of evil, to be sure. It is noxious and cloying, and it wants to annihilate everything. But that’s part of what is tripping Ben up. Because Light is not simply the absence of annihilation. Light is annihilation with good purpose. Darkness is chaos and destruction, and Light is caution and meaning. The Darkstaff wishes to control; the Light wishes to give.

_ We’re missing something, _ Ben thinks.

_ “Come to me,” _ the Darkstaff crows, and Ben blinks, turning his head, just in time to see Lior lower his lightsaber. He’s staring at the Darkstaff with rapturous wonder. At his side, Vesper has similarly stilled. Jannah stands near them, and Ben feels ice in his veins, and he thinks, desperately,  _ Please, please no-- _

A small white Light shines.

The Light comes from Finn, from the palm of his hand. His eyes are narrowed, jaw tense, and he’s turned his body away from Hansa to look at the other Knights of Ren. Behind him, Rey duels Hansa alone, keeping the Knight distracted.

Immediately, Jannah moves to copy Finn, the Force Light appearing in her palm as well. It is more controlled than the way they applied the power against the Terentatek on Pasaana, a persistent glow rather than sudden flash.

_ Of course, _ Ben thinks.  _ Force Light can sever the ties between a Sith Battle Lord and their followers. _

Ben looks at his own hand, and thinks of the way he burned up, the way he caused Bail’s skin to char, the way he held a flame in his palm on the dreadnought. He reaches down, searching for a well of anger. He has a lot to be angry about. He returns to it, focusing in on his anger at the First Order, at the Darkstaff, itself, at Bail--

Nothing happens.

A Light does appear in Ben’s hand, but it is the same glowing Force Light produced by Finn and Jannah. It isn’t ideal, but it’ll have to work.

Ben turns, and shoves the Light straight into his brother’s face.

Bail issues a stream of cuss words, which tells Ben that the Darkstaff’s hold on Bail has been lost. For now, at least.

Unfortunately, Lior slips away from the Jedi.

“No,” Vesper says, her call a little moan. She’s remained by Jannah, her eyes unfocused, the Light receding in them, eviscerating the unnatural purple for her normal green irises. But Lior is walking forward, straight to the Darkstaff.

_ “Yes,” _ the Darkstaff calls.  _ “Come to me, Fallow Ren… Let us unite, and become one, a stronger being…” _

And Ben knows what will happen before it does.

Lior, his eyes clouded with purple smoke, is two feet away from the Darkstaff when the black smoke spills out, yanking his body off the floor, and diving into it, as it had to Ben on the asteroid. Lior’s screams begin, as Ben’s did then, as Ben experienced the agony of being eaten alive.

Lior’s screams fully awaken Bail and Vesper, who sprint straight to the Darkstaff. More black smoke spills out, to gather around them, but they have enough sense to step away from it.

_ It’s trying to take Fallow’s Force essence! _ Jannah cries.  _ A Dark Sider! _

_ It’s desperate, _ Ben thinks.  _ It needed an easy source of power, so it went for a previously controlled Force user. _

But  _ why _ is it desperate?

And then Ben realizes that its presence, that nauseating Darkness: he can’t feel it anymore.

He can still feel the Darkness a bit, enough to know he’s facing the epitome of evil. But it’s distant; it doesn’t touch him. It doesn’t affect him.

It’s like he’s somehow become immune.

* * *

Rey stumbles at the blast of Force energy the Darkstaff expels when it begins to feast on Lior’s Force essence.

In front of her, Evoleth remains calm, and stands upright.

Purple electricity dances in his black eyes.

“Yes,” he croons.  _ “Yes.” _

“That’s your friend,” Rey hisses. “He’s dying!”

“He betrayed us,” Evoleth says, and Rey assumes he means the Darkstaff and himself. Two of them as one.

He leaps forward. Evoleth, Rey has realized, is fighting with Juyo now, abandoning his preferred Ataru. She’s pretty sure he isn’t a master of Juyo, not by any means, that it’s the Darkstaff and the Ancient Sith that once wielded it that guide his movements now. Even without an arm, he’s a formidable opponent.

Rey has never tried Juyo, has always known it to be dangerous, has never been sure she has the patience and serenity a Light Side Juyo duelist must have to keep the emotion and passion the Form demands from overwhelming her.

Luckily, Rey has spent plenty of time over the last five years dueling a Juyo Master.

It is so strange to see that while their moves are similar, Ben and Evoleth approach Juyo very differently. When Ben fights with Juyo, he moves with purpose and control, a crackling solar flare that overwhelms the bystander until they are an exhausted heap of ash. When Evoleth fights with Juyo, he becomes raw and ragged, a creature in a single-minded space of red hot rage.

Rey sees how Juyo could be advantageous to a Sith.

And she sees how it can be their undoing.

She answers Evoleth’s aggression with Soresu, the Resilience Form, focused on defense. She swings her lightsaber tightly, keeping it close to her body, forcing Evoleth to need to focus more should he land a blow to her. He snarls, realizing her strategy, and doubles his efforts at a higher speed.

Rey smiles.

She retreats into herself, moving into that well of grace and peace inside her. That space in her chest cavity she always lingered near in the cold nights of the Jakku wastelands, in the bowels of a scuttled Star Destroyer, in the grief and hopelessness that plagued her childhood. The Force has always been with her, and she has always clung to it.

_ Be with me, _ Rey thinks.

In the Temple of the Jedi, the Force gives her strength.

Rey moves into a one-handed grip, her dual blades doing the work of two lightsabers in one hilt. She stretches her left hand forward, using it to balance her body as she reacts to Evoleth’s parries, the emerald swinging to deflect the dark ruby.

_ “Fight back!” _ Evoleth snarls, practically spitting at her over their swinging blades.

Rey gently pushes his strike away.

“I am,” she says, calmly. “Let it go. Let go of your pain, Hansa. Don’t let it own you.”

In a mirror cave on Ahch-To, Rey looked at herself, and knew then that the Dark Side was showing her the ultimate weakness she’d spent so long trying to avoid: Her loneliness. The Dark Side was showing her this existential despair as a way to convert her, to show her how the Dark might let her eclipse that pain, by aiding her as she grew her own power. She saw how easy it would be to give in, to sink into the Dark and let it shelter her from her grief.

But Rey would not be who she is, would not be Rey of Nowhere, if she didn’t embrace her pain and come out the other side better for it.

She is her own best thing.

Her own goodness.

Hansa is too far gone, she thinks. He refused her offer of kindness earlier, and she knows that he won’t be accepting it now, either. The only thing left to do is carry him the rest of the way.

Her use of his first name sends Hansa into a new level of rage-fueled hysterics. He pushes her back, knocking her back to a wall displaying what might have once been a mosaic of an ocean, but is now cracked and broken, the image distorted. Rey walks smoothly and firmly, seeing where she will step before she does.

The Force tightens around her.

She waits, knowing the time is coming.

She does not have to wait for long.

Hansa’s mistake is minor; a Jedi practicing any other lightsaber Form might miss it. But Rey, in her tranquility and focus, sees it plainly, moments before it happens. Hansa steps just a couple inches too far to the left, and his thick bladed lightsaber arcs a little too closely, in order to accomodate the sudden space. One of Rey’s emerald blades slips in between.

Hansa utters a soft  _ “Oh!” _ when Rey’s sword settles in between his ribs.

The two of them stand there, frozen, for only a few moments. Hansa’s body grapples with the shock of the mortal wound, and Rey watches him.

When he slides to his knees, she falls with him.

She turns her lightsaber off, as Hansa’s drops from his suddenly numb hand. Rey sets her sword aside, placing one hand on Hansa’s back and lowering him gently to the cool stone, while her other hand grasps for his.

He stares at her with black eyes.

“Let go of the Darkness,” she whispers, squeezing his hand. “Let it go, and walk into the Netherworld with no hatred in your heart, so you may see Saffron again.”

She isn’t entirely sure what happens to Sith when they die; do they go to the same Netherworld? Do they go elsewhere? Was Qirin Ren even a Sith when she died?

The only thing Rey knows for sure is that if it can be avoided, Hansa Rodan should go into the next life as peacefully as possible.

She holds him in her arms.

“We are one with the Force,” she murmurs, “And the Force is with us. Rest now, Hansa Rodan.”

He stares at her.

Rey holds his hand, and watches as Hansa Rodan, former Jedi Knight and perhaps once a feral desert child like her, becomes one with the Force. Unlike what can happen with Jedi, his body does not disappear; but his eyes slowly return to their normal tawny color, and Rey thinks this can be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it's not clear: The key to pulling someone out of the Darkstaff's grip is pain. Physical pain and emotional pain. The physical pain of being shot or beaten, and the emotional pain of reckoning with your feelings, and what has been lost. (See: Vesper and Bail in the last chapter, and Chapter 11).
> 
> Borrowing the name "Sithtrooper" from TROS... Not that any of us could know that, having watched the movie... -_-


	21. Tave Vora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think I am what I was always meant to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY I AM SO EXCITED TO SHARE THIS, THREE STORIES OF BUILD-UP AND WE'RE HERE
> 
> I apologize for all the italics. Couldn't avoid it.
> 
> Mood music: This remix by Samuel Kim of Michael Giacchino's ["Your Father Would Be Proud" (ROGUE ONE)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDa8eKL8Byc) and ["There's No Place Like Home" from LOST, also by Giacchino.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT_TOcgCjK4)
> 
> cw: .... welp

Hansa’s death is so quiet and peaceful that Ben nearly misses it.

But he blinks, and the Force of the humans around him has changed, and he is not able to find the simmering Force presence that was Hansa. Ben turns his head, momentarily distracted from Lior’s deranged screams, and spots Rey near a far wall. She’s on her knees, tenderly cradling a body in her arms. He watches as she stretches her hand forward, and closes Hansa’s unseeing eyes.

Rey looks up, and she catches Ben’s gaze.

He sees her resolution, and her sorrow. Hansa’s death was merited, possibly inevitable to happen this moment, but of course Rey feels it still, feels hurt for it.

Ben maintains eye contact, and shakes his head.

 _You did enough, Rey,_ he tells her.

_“It’s important to me that no matter what, you know you did enough,” Ben tells her. “Everything you did, everything you’ve done. It has always been enough, Rey.”_

She offers him a small, hesitant smile, and he knows she’s heard him, and is recalling that recent conversation.

 _Master Jedi,_ Ben says, softly, and Rey’s eyes widen.

But he knows it’s true. Rey’s made it, she’s done it, all on her own, in her own way.

She’s a Jedi Master.

With Hansa dead, the last of its loyal Sith, the Darkstaff’s efforts begin anew.

A blast of devastating purple light explodes out of the Darkstaff. It knocks the droid-men off their feet, causing them to slam into the thick walls of the Temple, their armor cracking, blood and brain matter exploding out of a few. The Force users of the room use the Force to keep their balance; Jannah and Vesper drop to the floor, pressing their hands and feet firmly to the stone, while Finn crouches, and Rey hunches her shoulders.

Lior’s screams are endless.

 _We have to, we have to--_ Jannah calls, but the hopelessness in her thought is apparent.

Tears course freely down Vesper’s face.

Behind the Darkstaff, through the haze of purple light, Ben can see the room with the Force nexus.

 _Almost there,_ he thinks.

But then what?

There is a sudden, sickening _crack,_ and Lior’s body drops to the floor. A look of abject terror is affixed to his face, the tattoos on his skull pale with death.

In unison, Ben, Bail, and Vesper shudder.

They are the only three, the last survivors of Luke’s doomed Temple on Devaron. It is perhaps fitting, in a dreadful way, that they are the final ones left, as they were Luke’s first students.

The Darkstaff’s coils stretch again.

 _Run!_ Ben thinks, and he checks to make sure they do. He sees Rey dart through a side door, disappearing back into the Room of a Thousand Fountains, Vesper at her heels. Finn and Jannah scurry into a corridor lined with cracked statues.

And Bail and Ben slide into a newly formed pit, created by stone that has fallen from the roof overhead to smash craters into the floor.

“Tell me everything,” Ben spits, as the Darkstaff works to reanimate the droid-men it’d destroyed in its rage. “Everything in the Sith texts about the Light that can destroy it.”

“I _did,”_ Bail says, almost petulantly. _“Irus,_ I’m assuming it means Light Siders, Jedi--”

“Ugh, I know,” Ben groans. He wracks his brains, and then he remembers it, that word he was never able to translate, the word Luke didn’t recognize. The only word they found specifically associated with _prazutis,_ the word for _destruction_ in Sith.

“Bail,” Ben breathes. “Bail, do you know what _vora_ means? _Tave vora?”_

Bail frowns, pushing his messy black hair out of his eyes. “Um… Yeah, I think so, I mean--”

 _“What?”_ Ben presses, eager now.

They are so close, he can feel it--

Bail is barely looking at Ben, more focused on making sure the Darkstaff’s grasping smoke is not stretching to them. “I don’t know how it would work, but… _tave vora_ is the phrase the Sith use to describe the sun.”

_Tave vora._

_The sun._

And Ben thinks, _Oh._

_Oh._

* * *

He is on Takodana, looking at the stars with Rey.

 _“I want to,” Rey interjects, and Ben goes quiet. “It’s stupid, really. Nonsense. It’s just this voice saying, ‘The sun will keep you safe.’ Isn’t that ridiculous?_ ”

He is on Ahch-To, watching Rey discover the Force.

_“I felt you,” Rey whispers. “You were my sun.”_

He is on Zakuul, and a palm reader is seizing his hand.

_“You are a sun,” she notes, running one long, alarmingly cold finger down the middle of his hand. “Twin to a moon. Clinging to a star that you fear will leave you. Dark matter at your heels. You’ve got an entire galaxy on your shoulders. You should do well to remember that suns create their own light; you needn’t feel like you are walking in anyone’s shadow.” She looks up at him. “You are your own best thing.”_

He is on Naboo, sitting in the sands on his grandmother’s island.

_“Please, never doubt where you are with me,” Rey says, quietly. “I will always need you, and want you. You’re my sun. My best sun.”_

He is on Ajan Kloss, and his dead Jedi Master is in front of him.

_“Even suns burn out,” Ben murmurs._

_“The flames of a sun are unlike any light in the universe,” Luke comments. “A dying sun even more so, I’d expect.”_

_“This is a very heavy-handed metaphor.”_

_“Metaphor,” Luke echoes. “Interesting.”_

_“How so?” Ben asks, glancing at him. “I’m the sun.”_

* * *

_“Ben,” Luke says, kindly. “I don’t think you’ve ever understood what you are.”_

* * *

He is on Mantooine, the sun burning the back of his neck.

_“Show me. I have fought Kylo Ren. I know your rage.” Evoleth grins, all teeth. “Do you know what they call you? Civilians, citizens of the galaxy? Have you heard the stories? They call you The Righteous Man.”_

He is on Lothal, choking down spicy hot Mandalorian food.

_“And I know you,” Zorii replies. “The Righteous Man.”_

He is on Pasaana, and eviscerating his Dark Sider grandfather for his mistakes.

_Anakin flinches. Ben feels a twinge of satisfaction that is not becoming of a good Jedi, or a good man._

_He feels it nonetheless._

_The galaxy doesn’t call him The Righteous Man for nothing._

He is on Ajan Kloss, and Maz Kanata is watching him with her all-seeing, ageless eyes.

_“Yes,” she says, thoughtfully. “I do believe you are, Ben Organa-Solo. The Righteous Man.”_

* * *

_“Stars die all the time, Ben.”_

* * *

He is in his brother’s dreadnought, and he is thinking of evil, of deplorable people, of the First Order and its crimes, of government and tyranny, and he wishes to burn it down--

_A small flame stands in the center of his palm._

He is in the _Millennium Falcon,_ and he is fighting back, he is clawing to return to his body, he is determined to stay himself, to stay with Rey, to be Ben Organa-Solo--

_His hands are highlighted in yellow light._

He is in the Temple of the Jedi, and the Darkstaff cackles at him, and Ben is calm because he knows what he has to do.

_“He burns,” it says, and Ben’s skin crawls. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Finn tighten his grip on his lightsaber, while Jannah’s eyes widen slightly. Ben wonders if they assumed that when he told them the Darkstaff could speak that he was exaggerating. “All of that brilliant, hot Light… Look how he’s sunk into rage and pain. He longs to burn you alive.”_

He is in the room of the Force nexus, and his brother is a Dark sider, and Ben cannot let him kill more of his family.

_Bail is panting. He’s flexing the fingers of his hands, and Ben stares, because they are bright red, like he’s recently been burned. When Bail lifts his head, there is an angry red singe mark on his cheek, where Ben’s knuckles had hit his skin._

* * *

The purple electricity creeps ever closer to where Bail and Ben huddle.

But Ben doesn’t feel it. Not anymore.

“We have to move,” Bail mutters. “C’mon, Ben--”

But Ben places his hand on his brother’s arm, and Bail stills. He pauses, and looks at Ben, confusion in his dark eyes.

Ben studies the burns on Bail’s face.

“I’m not angry, Bail,” Ben whispers.

Bail frowns. “Um… Okay.”

“You asked me earlier how I was able to burn you,” Ben says. “Because it’s Pyrokinesis, but it also isn’t, not quite. And I told you it was happening when I was angry. And it is. Sort of. It’s _my_ anger, so it’s anger with a purpose. It’s fury with control. That shadow, in my Force signature? It’s me. It’s all me.”

Ben Organa-Solo, who mastered the Lightsaber Form the Old Jedi feared.

Ben Organa-Solo, who has refused the Dark Side again and again.

Ben Organa-Solo, who killed an old friend to save a new one.

Ben Organa-Solo, who used Force Rend when he needed to, because he could, because he didn’t fear it, because he had a purpose to do it.

Ben Organa-Solo, the sensitive boy, the quiet man, the worry-droid, the best hope.

Ben Organa-Solo, the Righteous Man.

Ben Organa-Solo, the Sun.

* * *

In the Room of a Thousand Fountains, Rey and Vesper take on droid-men.

Vesper is moving in a bit of a daze, Rey thinks. Rey imagines that the quick losses of two of her friends, two men she likely considered to be her family, has destabilized her, probably even more so than her decision to stand with a Jedi. Rey keeps close to her now, anticipating a mistake on Vesper’s part, preparing herself to intervene.

Vesper notices.

“Kriff off,” she spits, and the heartbreak and anger in her voice is obvious, but Rey chooses tactfulness and does not comment. Instead, she listens, and backs off, giving Vesper space.

Vesper has tapped into Niman anyway, and Rey isn’t keen on getting close to her furious movements and lethal red lightsaber.

Rey still fights with Soresu, preferring the Form’s defensive focus in the face of the aggression of the droid-men. They fight with a thousand generations of Sith duelists, and it makes them fight like Evoleth, in his last moments: wildly, and frantically. And unlike Evoleth, they don’t really have a vested interest in this fight. They do it because they were told to.

The Darkstaff is a black spot in the back of Rey’s mind.

Ancient ceramic pots are crushed under moving feet, while the tethers of hanging flower baskets are severed, sending them spilling to the floor. Rey yanks up roots with the Force, tripping up droid-men before they can get to her. Nearby, Vesper is a wildfire in the dying forest that is this greenhouse. Rey’s emerald sword is the rebirth that follows.

Rey steps back, almost stumbling through an open doorway. She regains her balance, stepping deftly to the side, and the droid-man that’d been charging her plummets, failing to anticipate the abrupt drop-off Rey had nearly been caught in.

She sees the room is like an amphitheater, with rows of stone seats that have seen better days. Scorch marks darken them, while large stone has rent cracks in every surface. At the bottom of these rows, in the center of the room, juts a pyramid-shaped stone. Rey can feel the humming from here, and knows it’s the Force nexus.

She glances up, realizing that the clumps of stone were part of the Temple’s ceiling, dislodged due to some catastrophic blow to the roof. Above the Temple, starfighters and cruisers scream through the Coruscant sky. It’s gotten late enough in the day that the sun has begun to set, and thanks to the pollution that defines this city-planet, the sky is a dark, bloody red--

_Red._

_“The sky was red,” she whispers. “I don’t know if it… was due to a sunrise, a sunset, or something else. But it was so quiet. So still. I could hear birds. I was lying on my side, on the ground, on stone. Like a… Like I was in a quarry. I think it was a quarry.”_

The room of the Force nexus is not a quarry. And it doesn’t look _exactly_ like her Force vision did.

But it’s close.

Terrifyingly close.

 _Ben,_ Rey thinks. _Ben, where are you?_

And, in a way, he answers her.

The screens of the droid-men around her, around Vesper, go dark.

And then an image of Ben, of Ben standing with his dark blue lightsaber at his side, appears on the screens. A single word in Sith flashes, the order computing, as the droid-men begin to march, abandoning Vesper and Rey without hesitation.

_Zudyti._

_Kill._

* * *

The Darkstaff is an ancient relic that seeks to destroy single-mindedly, to gain power, to obliterate and be supreme. It is the darkest of dark things. It’s the antithesis of the Jedi and what they stand for. It is the total absence of the Light. The Darkstaff wishes to take, and the Jedi wish to give.

The Jedi will give everything. 

And Ben Organa-Solo is nothing if not a Jedi.

He rises, looking calmly ahead, to the Darkstaff and its coiling smoke. He wonders if it knows. He wonders if it sensed what he was, the first time it encountered him in the asteroid. He wonders if that was why it attacked him so quickly, and so viciously; trying to snuff out its mortal threat before the threat could attack it.

“What are you doing?” Bail asks, still crouching, unwilling to make himself obvious to the Darkstaff’s purple light.

Ben turns his head, and looks at his brother.

Bail stills, staring, stunned at the expression on his twin’s face. The resolution. The calm. The clarity.

“I think I was always going to end up here,” Ben says. “I think I am what I was always meant to be.”

_“I want,” Ben says, “To be able to forgive my choices.”_

“What are you talking about?”

Ben remembers being on Takodana, and watching BB-8 and Rey, with all her soft light, run away from him. He remembers turning away, and walking to Kylo Ren, walking with purpose, the knowledge he was always going to, one day.

And yet, still, Ben thought: _Let it be my choice._

It is his choice now, in the same way he chooses to breathe, chooses to love Rey, chooses to wield a lightsaber. In short, it is his choice because he is who he is.

“Don’t kill yourself,” Ben says, and Bail gawks, clearly not expecting these words from Ben. “No matter what happens after this. You can’t do that to Mom. And be… Be kind, to Rey. For me.”

“What--”

“Hold them off,” Ben snaps, and he jumps out of the pit, to land on solid ground, to face the onslaught of droid-men that are pouring into the room. All of the droid-men, Ben realizes, have screens showing his own face.

 _The Darkstaff must have sensed what is about to happen,_ Ben thinks.

He ignites his lightsaber, as Bail scrambles up to stand at his side.

Ben looks at him, and smiles. “It’s good to stand beside you again, Bail.”

_On Takodana, surrounded by green and battle, the cargo hauler and the masked man stared at each other._

_Ben slipped back into the Force, and in doing so, he surrendered._

_“It’s always been you and me. I want to stand beside my brother again, Bail.”_

Bail stares at Ben, clearly still confused over Ben’s odd words, and there are so many memories, so many wishes and promises and dreams and betrayals and nightmares and sorrows. So much cruelty and pain.

The unique brand of violence brothers can wreak on the other.

And there are few brothers more violent than the Organa-Solo Twins.

“Let’s fucking go,” Bail says, and Ben laughs, and they meet the droid-men as one.

They are a cosmic storm, two celestial bodies at war, two systems in dangerously close proximity. They are electric and magnetic. They are two stars that co-exist, that move around the other without thinking about it at all, doing it in the same way the sea knows to lap at the shore. They know how to rely on the other, and how to come to the other’s aid. They fight like the droid-men, in that they are only brains in bodies and sharing a consciousness, a line of communication between them, unseen but on a supernatural level. The personification of a binary star system.

The Darkstaff retreats into the Force nexus room, and Ben thinks, _Perfect._

Rey and Vesper are already in the room, emerging from the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Ben can feel Rey’s eyes on him, can feel her anxiety, and it hits him what this room looks like.

A quarry, bathed in red light.

The sun sinks over the Galactic City, casting bloody shadows into the Temple.

 _Rey,_ Ben thinks, and he doesn’t know what to say.

Jannah and Finn burst through another set of doors, likely following the droid-men streaming in from all around the Temple. Ben barely pays them any attention, only taking a moment to check that they’re okay before moving forward, taking down as many droid-men as possible.

 _I have to get to the Darkstaff,_ he reaches, calling to the Jedi and Bail and Vesper. _Help me clear a path._

 _What’s the plan?_ Vesper wonders. Blood has splattered her cheeks, residue from the ferocious way she’s mowing down droid-men.

_I’m going to pick up the Darkstaff._

The confusion that wafts through the Force to Ben would be funny, in any other situation.

 _What the hell?!_ Finn declares. He’s a yellow blur in Ben’s mind, natural and present. 

_It knows,_ Ben pushes. _It knows if I do that it’ll be destroyed! That’s why it’s trying so hard to kill me!_

Maybe it’s always known.

Bail has faltered slightly, the revelation slowing his movements. Across the room, Rey’s light is flickering with fear. The Force nexus in the floor of the room is pulsing, in time with Ben’s own stable heartbeat, like the Force itself knows what’s coming. Ben thinks it probably does.

The Living Force, guided by the Cosmic Force.

Some things are always inevitable.

Ben shoves the droid-man in front of him to the ground. He raises his hand, and _pushes,_ and five droid-men are thrown to the side like a gale of wind gusting through a field of wildflowers. Ben raises his chin, and stares at the Darkstaff.

“Do you fear me?” Ben asks.

He is not surprised when the Darkstaff lashes out with purple electricity, but he remains still. He feels the electricity reach him, feels it touch him, but it only leaves him with the scent of petrichor in his nose, that smell of the arid land just before a thunderstorm.

“I’ll take that as a _yes,”_ Ben says.

 _“I will feast on your Force essence,”_ the Darkstaff says now. _“You will power me for a generation. I shall take you now, and then… Kylo Ren. We can travel back to that time you wish to visit so badly, Kylo Ren. That universe where your brother does not die for you.”_

Bail stills, lowering his lightsaber, staring in stunned silence.

The Darkstaff’s offer is silly, and nonsensical. Ben is doing this because the Darkstaff exists, in this timeline.

In this universe.

 _Rey,_ Ben reaches. _Rey, remember what we decided about visions, and this universe. Remember that this is my choice. Remember that you and me are inevitable in every universe._

 _Ben!_ Rey cries, but he pulls away.

Ben turns his head, to glare at his brother.

“You think that leaving me was your mistake?” he asks. “Then don’t leave me now. Don’t listen to the Darkstaff. It has to be me, and I need to do this. _Help_ me.”

“No,” Bail whispers, and some realization darkens his eyes.

And then the smoke from the Darkstaff reaches him.

Bail screams, and it’s like Ben is screaming, it’s like Ben’s heart is being torn from his chest, like a sword has been plunged into his stomach, like every nightmare coming true. Bail writhes, and flails, and Ben feels the terror from Vesper, the shock from Rey, the horror and surprise from Jannah and Finn. Ben stands still, and knows that this is the Darkstaff’s last, desperate play.

But it’s too late.

Ben extinguishes his lightsaber, and breaks into a sprint. Lasers fly through the air, and one or two hit him, but he is past feeling that pain, past it all. 

_Run, Ben, run!_ Obi-Wan calls.

 _Skywalkers choose their own ending,_ Anakin whispers.

 _It’s time, Ben. Don’t be afraid,_ Luke says.

He runs straight to the Darkstaff, tuning out his twin’s agony, tuning out the panic that is Rey, as she, too, knows what is about to happen.

Ben reaches the Darkstaff, and takes it in his hand.

And he thinks, _Finally._

_The end, at last._

Time has run out, and Ben is ready.

He burns.

* * *

_What’s he doing?_ Jannah cries in Rey’s head.

Rey knows what he is doing, but she is too focused on getting to him, too focused on battering down the droid-men that are blocking her way to Ben, to answer Jannah. She dives headfirst into the Force, giving herself over to it entirely, and she chants, _Be with me, be with me, be with me--_

A call to not only the ghosts of this Temple, but to Ben, as well.

She can see him, outlined in light, light like a flame, light like the afternoon sun. The Darkstaff pulses, purple light and black smoke, but it is unable to touch Ben when he is on fire like this. He glows, and he is hot, hot like he never has been before.

* * *

She is on Takodana, and she is running through the woods, and she is searching--

_He is a sunbeam in her head, brilliant light and a full spectrum of color. He had called her bright, and while he is too, she is overwhelmed by how he is warm. He runs hot, and she wishes to stay close to all that soft warmth, a welcoming and familiar presence that might stand next to her and make her feel safe and protected._

She is on Ilum, stumbling through the snow, a battle overhead, and she is reaching--

_He’s as clear as a spring lake in the evening, as warm as the touch of a lover in the dead of night, as bright as the rays of a brilliant winter sunrise. Rey has never felt anything like it, like him._

She is on Ahch-To, meditating with the Force, and she is feeling--

_“Warmth.”_

_Ben, smiling at her, bright and affectionate, in the sunlight._

She is on Snoke’s dreadnought, and the despair and guilt has settled in her, and she is grasping--

_He is a ray of sunlight through an overcast sky. A patch of warmth in a desolate field of gray._

She is on Crait, and the First Order is lined before her, and her skim-speeder is stuttering, and she is sensing--

 _The warmth in the_ Millennium Falcon _is undeniable. There could be no other pilot._

_No one else in the galaxy has that warmth._

She is on Ajan Kloss, putting the finishing touches on a birthday cake, and she is waiting--

_Like a beacon of pure, sustaining sunlight, Ben’s presence washes over her. He is sheer warmth, something kind, something sustaining, a sun that Rey wishes to remain close to, to never be separated from. She will never not reach out for him._

* * *

But he is not that warm light, not now.

Now, he is a sun. He is on fire. He is flame and ash. The brightest light and its darkest shadow, all at once. He is every aspect of a sun, his own solar storm. Annihilating, and bright, and purposeful, and just. He is everything he ever has been, everything and more. The Light of the Jedi, and the echo of its dark past. The Righteous Man. Ben.

How could the Darkstaff survive that?

 _It can’t,_ Rey thinks.

She redoubles her efforts, blood flinging into the air around her as she tears apart droid-men. The droid-men aren’t fighting as neatly or powerfully as they had earlier, and Rey thinks this is another sign of the Darkstaff’s panic, that it is barely controlling the droid-men, focused more on its survival.

Ben is carrying the Darkstaff now, moving to the Force nexus in the center of the room. She glimpses the black smoke, and is nearly felled by the despair and sickness the Darkstaff is expelling in the Force. Ben remains impervious to it. His eyes are lit in light, but he seems to be looking at something far away, something that is not in the Temple of the Jedi.

The air hums.

 _Be with me,_ Rey thinks, wildly, and Ben looks at her.

For a moment, for one moment of time, it is just them.

The bearded man glaring down at her in the bowels of the _Millennium Falcon._

The energetic man sparring with her under the stars of Takodana.

The sad man pleading with her to make her own choices.

The shy man kissing her next to the fire on the island on Ahch-To.

The regal man watching her unearth her lightsaber crystal in the caves on Velmor.

The kind man correcting her stances in the jungle of Ajan Kloss.

The happy man laughing with her in the bunk room.

Ben smiles at her.

 _Ben,_ Rey calls, and she stretches her arm out, her fingers grasping--

Another set of fingers close on her other wrist, and Rey turns her head, distracted.

Vesper stands there, tears breaking up the blood on her face. She shakes her head, mutely, and her grip tightens on Rey’s wrist. Silently forcing Rey to remain in place, to not race down the stone steps to where Ben stands with the Darkstaff, to where Bail writhes in the black smoke.

 _Don’t be afraid, Rey,_ Ben reaches. 

“No!” Rey cries, aloud, and she jerks, but Vesper plants her feet, and clings to Rey. “No, Ben! _Ben!”_

 _“The sun will keep you safe,” Ben whispers, but it is not now, not now, it was then, it was_ then, _he was with her on Jakku in the sands and the grief--_

Ben pulls back.

In the fire and the smoke, Rey sees him grab the purple beam of light at the top of the Darkstaff. His hand sizzles, but he seizes it, and squeezes. The fire erupts, flames licking, and the Darkstaff screams.

There is light, light like Rey has never seen, light so strong she thinks it will never be extinguished.

But Luke warned her, didn’t he?

Even suns burn out.

* * *

Rey doesn’t know how long she’s been unconscious.

She opens her eyes, allowing herself to feel a little surprised that she can still see. Above her, the sky is a dark, blood red. Plumes of smoke darken the sky further, and as she watches, starfighters and cruisers zip through the ashes. A Star Destroyer plummets out of space, crashing onto the planet below, shaking the entire building, what remains of the Temple of the Jedi.

Aside from the sounds of the First Order falling, it is very quiet. Little licks of flame can be heard, crackling sparks. A soft breeze blows through the Room of a Thousand Fountains, and the leaves left on the very few plants that survived the battle shiver softly with the wind. Rey breathes, taking in the quiet, the surety of the stone under her body.

She turns her head.

The room looks like a bomb has exploded inside it, stone tossed in all directions, no sign of the amphitheater left. A staff, a rod of plain wood, lies charred on the floor, the purple light gone without a trace. The Force nexus has been blown out, the pyramid of stone obliterated. 

In its place, lying on his back, is Ben.

Blood has spilled out of one of his nostrils, staining his pale skin, while another tendril curls at the corner of his mouth. His hair is a little gray with ash, and his shirt has a hole in it. His lightsaber lies near his hip, having fallen from his belt at some point.

One of his arms is stretched out, stretched towards Rey, as if he had tried to reach for her.

His dark brown eyes gaze unseeingly at the red sky.

Rey lies on her side, and she stares, and stares.

And then there is a sigh, the feeling of something cosmic settling in place, the feeling of finality.

As she watches, Ben’s body disappears, as he becomes one with the Force.

All that remains is a pile of clothes, a necklace with a gold die on it, and a bracelet with an Alderaanian asteroid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my defense, I did tell you this was going to happen.
> 
> **There's going to be a happy ending!!!!** We just have to earn it. If I had known just how LONG this story was going to be, I would have split it up. Maybe at this point, plot-wise. In my head, this is the end of Part 2 of this story. (I'm currently writing Chapter 26!).
> 
> I hope you are not turned off by this plot choice. I had it planned, as a Thing To Happen, since the end of THAT LOOKING-GLASS ACHE. I'm really excited to share the rest of the story. There will be love, humor, grief, friendship, action, memory, answers, reunions, and mythology. It's gonna be FUN.
> 
> "We have come too far together toward the end now / to fear the end. These nights, I am no longer even certain / I know what the end means."  
> — Louise Glück, "The Silver Lily", from The Wild Iris: Poems.
> 
> \---
> 
> As an American, I would be deeply remiss in not taking a moment to acknowledge the protests against police brutality and systemic racism taking place in my country. I wrote my undergrad senior thesis about racism and segregation and how these ideologies persist in mental health care in the U.S., much to the detriment of people of color. I am a white woman, and I know I benefit from privilege. I am always trying to be better. If you are similarly interested in unpacking your privilege and understanding how America has gotten to this moment, your first stop is Spike Lee's 1989 masterpiece, "Do The Right Thing". A 31 year old movie that could have been made today. Please stay safe out there.


	22. Twilight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Rey, Master of the New Jedi Order. Checking in."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention this: Ben's destruction of the Darkstaff is based on the Old EU plot of the destruction of the Darkstaff, wherein someone volunteered to be struck by it and channel the Light Side of the Force into it. The Darkstaff did panic when approached by this person. The Darkstaff could not eat the Force essence of someone freely sacrificing themselves. Through the person's self-sacrifice, the Darkstaff was destroyed.

In the days, months, and even years after, Rey will never be able to say how she managed to get to her feet. She will never fully remember taking those first steps to the pile of clothes lying in the middle of the Force nexus room in the Jedi Temple of Coruscant. It seems like all that happens is she blinks, and suddenly, she’s up and staring down at Ben’s clothes.

It’s almost funny. She’s looked at a pile of Ben’s clothes a lot in the last five years. Ben isn’t _messy,_ has never been messy, but dirty clothes tend to pile up on base. And then neither of them are particularly adept at unpacking following long trips off base, and the plasticene bin they use as a laundry hamper would rapidly fill before one of them caved and did laundry. Rey has washed and folded Ben’s clothes a million times before.

But in the Jedi Temple of Coruscant, she can only stare.

“Rey.”

She recognizes the sound of her name. She turns her head.

Vesper stands there, having gotten up from her own prone position on the floor near the room’s edge. Her blonde hair is oddly flat on one side, likely pressed down from the way she’d been lying on the ground. Her face is covered in dried blood that is not her own, while there’s a bruise at her temple, and tears in the knees of her trousers. She holds her lightsaber in her hand, but makes no move to ignite it.

Her eyes flicker down to the pile of clothes in front of Rey, to the right of Rey, and then back to Rey.

“I…” She swallows, and hesitates, but her eyes glance to the open door behind her.

Rey understands.

“In the POTU,” Rey murmurs, “There’s a bar called the Shrike. A woman with pale blue skin and bright red hair works there. Atheenia. Find her, and tell her you are a friend of Vassic. She’ll shelter you, or find you a ride off Coruscant. Whatever you’d like. Just tell her to add it to his tab.”

Vesper nods.

She looks back down at the pile of clothes again.

“I… I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

“Me too,” Rey whispers. She clears her throat. “You’d better hurry. The Resistance will be here any moment.”

Vesper does not need telling twice. She spins on the spot, and breaks into a run, disappearing into the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Rey’s sure she’ll find a quick route out of the Temple. The building has taken so many hits in the last hour that Rey is amazed it’s still standing at all.

Rey looks down at the pile of clothes again. Carefully, she drops to her knees.

“Rey?”

This voice is easier to recognize, but it does not make it easier for her to hear. Rey bites her lip, and shakes her head, as Finn approaches, Jannah trailing him. Both Jedi look awful; Finn’s shirt is heavily stained in blood and sweat, while Jannah’s hair is half-out of its neat braids, and a long jagged cut runs over her bare bicep. But even worse than these injuries are the expressions on their faces.

Rey reaches forward, and gathers Ben’s clothes to her.

The necklace with the gold die slips out of his shirt collar, and Rey seizes it.

The die is shockingly unblemished. Rey had been anticipating some kind of mark, some kind of sign that it’d been through a battle, that its owner had died wearing it. But the gold die looks as it always has.

Without thinking too much about it, Rey pulls the cord it hangs off of over her own head.

_“He gave you this die,” Han murmurs, “So you would give it to me. And I would know that he wanted to say goodbye.”_

She fishes the bracelet with the bit of Alderaanian asteroid out of the shirt sleeve. There’s a new nick in the stone, a sign of debris hitting the rock at some point, but the surface is still polished, the stardate Rey had etched on it still clear. She tugs the bracelet over her own wrist, fiddling with the strap so it stays on her smaller wrist.

_“I hope it can be a… promise, of sorts,” Rey murmurs. “A combination of two things that are yours. That past, and… This future. Something you can carry and wear; a constant reminder of both.”_

“Rey,” Jannah whispers.

Rey _can’t._

“Master… Oh.”

She looks up, at the new voice.

A soldier, a Kassk, stands there, dressed in the tan fatigues common with the Resistance. Rey hasn’t seen him before, doesn’t recognize him, and assumes he must work out of a different base than the main one on Ajan Kloss. His olive skin is a little gray with dust and ash, and his black eyes are wide, clawed fingers tapping nervously on his lowered blaster.

Rey pulls herself together.

She stands.

“Yes?” she asks, and her voice comes out calm, if completely emotionless.

“Looking for orders, Master Jedi,” the soldier replies. “With what we should do with the prisoner.”

 _Prisoner,_ Rey echoes. She looks to the right of her, where Vesper had looked earlier.

Bail is lying on his front, his arms bound behind his back, three Resistance soldiers leaning over him. He’s twisted his head a bit, to prevent himself from getting a faceful of stone and a broken nose. He’s staring at the ground at Rey’s feet, the spot where his brother had died, and disappeared into the Force. Though his face is black and blue with bruises and cuts, the skin under it is nearly chalk white.

 _He’s in shock,_ Rey thinks.

The Resistance had subdued him completely silently. He didn’t fight back.

“Has a central command station been established on the ground yet?” Rey asks.

“Our orders are to move to the Imp--the Palace of the Republic,” the soldier says, flushing a little at the slip. Leia has always fought to call the former Imperial Palace by its original name. “Commanders Antilles and Omas are there already.”

Wedge and Elya. Wedge would have been in his starfighter, and whatever transport Elya had directed her troops from during the battle seems to have survived the onslaught.

“Take him there,” Rey decides. “Finn, Jannah; go with them, please.”

“Rey--” Finn starts, but Rey interrupts him.

“He’s still the Supreme Leader of the First Order,” she snaps. “What’s left of it, at least. He’s our most wanted, and now, our prisoner of war. And he’s Force sensitive. It’d be irresponsible to not have two Jedi Knights escorting him to wherever the Resistance is holding their prisoners.”

If Jannah catches Rey’s characterization of her as a Knight, she doesn’t show it. She only looks at Rey with big, sad eyes.

Finn frowns. “I know, but Rey, we can’t leave you--”

“You can,” Rey interjects. “I need… I need some time.”

Finn still looks torn, so Rey deploys the last, greatest weapon in her arsenal. The one she never wished to have, to never need to use.

“That’s a direct request from the Master of the New Jedi Order,” Rey says, firmly.

She would never _order_ Finn, just as Ben never ordered her or any of the others. He always gave directions and requests, while leaving space for questions and concerns. And Rey, Finn, and Jannah were always good at knowing when to push back, and when to do as directed without commenting.

Finn recognizes this now.

Rey lets him squeeze her hand, and Jannah touches her hair. And then the two of them head off, marching to the Resistance soldiers gathered in the room entryway. Jannah’s lightsabers swing at her hips, while Finn returns his to his belt. They both still wear stormtrooper armor on their arms, but none of the Resistance soldiers so much as blink at this. Rey wonders how many newly rebellious stormtroopers are waiting outside the Temple, and what will happen to them next.

Bail does not look at her once. He lets himself be yanked to his feet. His brown eyes are dazed, as blood from a cut on his forehead drips down towards his eye. His matted hair hangs limply, the ends brushing his shoulders.

Rey remains standing until the room has emptied, and she’s alone again.

She slides down to her knees.

She manages to distort the thigh holster Ben had carried his pistol with to fit around her upper arm, winding the leather a couple times to do so. She pulls the belt that he carried the extra lightsaber with on his back over her own shoulders, slinging it over her back. The extra lightsaber isn’t nearby; she’ll have to search a bit for it.

She does not need any of these weapons to be readily accessible; she just needs to have her hands free, and she’s determined to not leave anything of Ben’s behind in this Temple.

Rey picks up his lightsaber last. It looks the same as always, if dirty, bits of stone crushed to a fine powder in between the metals. She presses her thumb to the emitter switch, and the familiar beam of dark blue light bursts in front of her.

_A sharp hiss comes from behind her._

_A lightsaber powering on._

_Rey turns._

_Ben stands there, illuminated in the dark by his own lightsaber blade. It is a mirror image of Kylo’s, with the same crossguard design, though Ben’s is not spazzing or trembling. Instead, it seems to sing, its blade a beautiful dark blue, like a summer sky at midnight._

Rey turns the lightsaber off.

She folds his clothes neatly, creating a tight square she can easily pick up. She ties the laces of his boots together, and throws them over her shoulder, rising to her feet. She must look ridiculous, weighed down with weapons and articles of clothing. She must look like the scavenger of the wastelands she once was, who would haul scrap for miles, in an effort to wring a half-portion from the tyrant who ran the Outpost.

But this haul is the most precious haul for Rey, by far.

_“Carry me home, Rey.”_

Rey peers around the room, checking to make sure she isn’t missing anything. There are bodies everywhere, the bodies of droid-men, armor and blood and brains and wires. Thick cracks line the walls of the building, the sky above still that ominously dark red, though now devoid of aircraft of any kind.

But on the floor, abandoned in the rubble: Bail’s lightsaber.

Rey picks it up.

It’s identical to Ben’s in shape and size, though Bail’s is cleaner. She thinks it’s been retrofitted with phrik at some point, hardening the hilt better, protecting it from outside damage. Rey turns the lightsaber around in her hands, as if searching for something, but what that is, she has no idea. It’s a lightsaber. She’s seen it before.

She adds it to the impressive collection growing on her belt.

Rey peers around the room, at the empty pit where the Force nexus once stood, at the plain rod of burned and ashy wood on the ground, at the smashed rows of stone that lined the walls.

There is nothing left for her here.

* * *

The Temple is practically demolished.

The walls are rife with cracks, stained with scorches from stray blaster fire, splashed with blood in places. Many of the statues have sustained damage, limbs and heads carelessly smashed on the floor around pedestals. Balustrades have been split apart, while entire staircases have crumbled. Much of the roof has been destroyed, piles of shingles and stone haphazardly around the halls. Sparks spit out of exposed wires; little fires sprout everywhere.

And there are bodies, so many bodies.

There are lots of droid-men, and it continues to shock Rey to find droids with pools of blood under their torsos. A few droid-men have been shot or speared through with a lightsaber, revealing the bits of gray matter inside their torsos that were once their brains. And then some droid-men look perfectly whole and neat, save for the fact they’re unmoving, their screen-heads fully powered off. It’s clear to Rey they died with the Darkstaff, that special Dark magic that tethered them to the Darkstaff, that helped animate them.

There are also stormtroopers, nearly all unmasked, stormtroopers who rose up in rebellion and died for the cause soon after. And of course, there are Resistance soldiers, recognizable in their tan fatigues, soldiers who died with the taste of freedom and blood on their tongues.

Rey wanders through the carnage, pausing every now and then to close a set of eyes, to try and create some serenity amidst the death.

The Room of a Thousand Fountains hadn’t been in great shape when they first found it, but it looks immensely more awful now, in the light after a battle has torn through the greenery. Many of the few surviving plants have been trod upon, while pots have been smashed by stray blaster fire. A few bodies have tumbled into fountains, staining the water a muddy brown, while a brush fire in the corner has managed to eat up several shrubs and flowers before Rey is able to extinguish it.

She finds the corpse of Lior quickly. His skin has paled and hardened in the time since he died, and the expression on his face is nearly unbearable, his eyes wide and mouth dropped with pain and fear. Rey lingers by him, closing his eyes, adjusting his hands so they rest comfortably over his abdomen. She lays her palm flat on his yellow forehead.

“There is no death,” Rey whispers to Lior Baydowl, “There is the Force. Godspeed, Lior. May you find peace in the next life.”

_“I think I would have found you,” Ben tells Rey, now, on Ajan Kloss, the end galloping towards them, “In any life, in any universe. I think we would have reached for the other. Maybe, in the universe closest to ours, your parents leave you on Devaron, and we become Jedi together.”_

Rey clears her throat, and pulls her hand off Lior’s face.

Hansa is exactly where she left him. She does not linger near him. She has already offered him her kindest blessing as he died in her arms.

Rey does not see Rose among the dead, and so she chooses to believe this means her friend survived the fight in the Temple. She does not know if this means Rose survived the fight entirely.

Rey is keeping her tether to the Force very close. She is afraid to stretch it, to truly feel.

She knows she needs to.

She will need to give in to the Force, that persistent glow in her chest, at some point.

She will need to reckon with what a universe feels like without Ben Organa-Solo in it.

Rey isn’t ready. She isn’t sure she could ever _be_ ready. Ben might have said he was trying to prepare her, by talking so calmly and candidly about his death beforehand, but Rey had never bought into his efforts. She’d never once thought she could be prepared to lose him. She decidedly hates being proven right now.

But she will have to reach out.

She’ll have to reach Leia.

Rey is sure that Leia already knows. Leia was able to feel Han’s death, on the other side of the galaxy from where she stood on D’Qar. And Han wasn’t even Force sensitive, and Han was not the baby she’d carried in her, the child she’d watched grow up, the boy she’d loved so very much. Leia and Ben have always had an incredibly intimate connection. Leia was the second person Ben ever reached out to, back before he could even fathom what that meant.

Leia will have felt his death.

But Rey knows she still owes it to her to see her, to acknowledge the loss in person.

The spare lightsaber Ben built for Finn five years earlier is buried under a small stack of rubble. Rey raises her hand, and it flies obediently to her, an echo of the way the Skywalker lightsaber once soared out of the snow for her. The hilt of this lightsaber is nearly identical to that one; Ben had crafted a relatively simple lightsaber, as it was always meant to be an extra, to be used in cases of emergency. She wonders if he used it today. She doesn’t remember.

She’s now carrying _four_ lightsabers.

What an absurd thing that is, on a day that has already been so absurd and so terrible.

* * *

Rey leaves the Jedi Temple.

The sun is still making its slow way to the horizon, but the colors in the sky have darkened, reds that are closer to maroon than scarlet, stygian oranges, subtler yellows. Smoke and exhaust lines in the sky are few and far between. Rey is sure the skies of Coruscant have likely never been emptier before.

The streets of the Senate District are trashed, covered in debris and bodies. The bodies are mostly similar to the ones inside the Temple, consisting of Resistance soldiers, First Order officers, stormtroopers, and droid-men. But there are also bodies of people dressed in clothes not reminiscent of either of those factions. They are only civilians, pedestrians and citizens of Coruscant who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. These bodies are all ages, species, and class levels, and Rey’s heart pangs with the loss of so much life.

A handful of starcraft are scuttled, little more than charred bits of metal, their various identifying marks obliterated in flame. She can see an entire Star Destroyer a couple miles away, its fall having created a new crater in the city’s architecture. The scavenger in Rey, that feral desert child, briefly wakes up at this image that is so similar to the Graveyard of Giants. She wonders what Coruscant, immeasurably wealthy in comparison to Jakku, will do with these crashed ships. They have the credits to clean up, after all.

Rey looks away from these expensive scraps, towards the Imperial Palace; or, as she should call it now, the Palace of the Republic.

It’s massive, like nearly every building on Coruscant, a sprawling complex containing the offices of endless government operations. It looks like a cross between a cathedral and a pyramid, reminding Rey of the Jedi Temple, though at a higher level, with its greater amount of spires and towers. It is also, similarly, wretched now, having sustained damage during the air and ground assaults.

Many of the ships surrounding the base of the palace now, however, are whole and operational.

The Resistance has landed.

Rey begins the long walk to the Palace, her eyes studying the ships ahead of her. Rey spies a few Nebulon-C escort frigates, lots of corvettes, dozens of x, a, and y-wings, several transport pods, and plenty of other starfighters. And above them all, resting so close to the gates of the Palace of the Republic it’s nearly landed on them, is the two year old MC80 Starcruiser that contains much of the Resistance’s command staff, including their Commander-in-Chief. It’s the _Skywalker,_ Leia’s flagship.

 _Good,_ Rey thinks. _Good._

She’s only made it about fifty yards away from the Jedi Temple when a familiar shadow flies over her, coming to land a hundred yards away. It is that gray, legendary freighter that has been so beloved to the extended Organa-Solo-Skywalker family, that freighter that has carried them back and forth across the galaxy for two generations, that freighter that has eluded empires and regimes, that freighter that flew Ben and Rey to Coruscant from Ajan Kloss.

The _Millennium Falcon_ lands ahead of her.

Rey takes a deep breath, and continues her walk.

She watches as the entry ramp of the _Falcon_ is lowered.

Chewbacca is either off first, or simply the first Rey sees, as he’s more easily recognizable with his large shape and fur. But coming up right behind him is Lando, a long blue cape hanging from his shoulders. The two men wait for her at the bottom of the ramp.

She approaches, and she wonders if they will ask, and she wonders how she will tell them, and she wonders if the clothes and lightsabers weighing her down will explain enough, but then--

A bit of setting sunlight refracts off the gold die hanging at her throat.

Rey watches Chewbacca break.

The Wookiee drops to his knees there on the cement street. He beats his heavy fists on the stone ground, and he _wails,_ an echo of the way he cried out after watching Han die at the hands of Kylo Ren five years earlier. Lando immediately moves to stand over him, his hand tight to Chewie’s shoulder, while the other hand goes to his face, covering his eyes, as his lip trembles.

Rey hurries to the two men.

“I’m so sorry,” she gasps, running to Chewie now. “I am so sorry, I--”

She’s reached Chewie, has slid to her knees in front of him, and is instantly engulfed in his arms. She is unable to hug him back, Ben’s clothes clutched in her arms, one of his boots pressing to her chest while the other hangs behind her back, so she buries her face in Chewie’s shoulder instead. She feels Lando come around, feels him lean over to wrap his arms around them both.

“I’m so sorry,” Rey whispers. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t stop him.”

 _I couldn’t save him,_ Rey thinks.

 _“No, Rey-_ jow,” Chewie says, and Rey bites her lip hard to prevent her sob from escaping her throat. _“It is not your fault. Do not feel guilt for what has happened. Do not apologize.”_

Lando’s hand comes to rest on Rey’s head, brushing her messy braids. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. So sorry for your loss.”

 _My loss,_ Rey thinks, trying to grapple with the words. Vesper had also apologized to Rey, but her words had barely registered. Rey had been too far gone in shock to fully understand anything then.

Rey manages to pull away. Lando helps her to her feet, while Chewie stands in front of her.

“He, um, became one with the Force,” Rey says, carefully. “That’s why I have his things.”

 _“There’s no body?”_ Chewie asks.

Rey shakes her head. “No. When a Jedi dies, they… They rejoin the Cosmic Force, and their body disappears. So I just have his things, his clothes, his lightsaber, and his… The die from Han, and the bracelet from me.”

She catches Lando glancing surreptitiously at the leather band at her wrist, but he chooses not to comment.

Chewie leads her inside the ship.

She had thought, somehow, that the _Millennium Falcon_ would look different, now that her Captain is dead. But the ship looks entirely the same. Still unkempt and old, with the same familiar scents of rust, mold, and grease, the errant stains in the corners and walls. Chewie and Lando shadow Rey as she goes to the bunk room.

Their things are still in the room, as anticipated. Their bags, with their extra clothes. Ben’s last notebook and text. The two mattresses on the floor, the sheets wrinkled. An empty bowl on a rickety table, the remnants of the hastily made porridge Rey had scarfed down before they arrived on Coruscant.

Rey walks inside.

She carefully places Ben’s folded clothes on one of the mattresses, sets his boots on the grimy floor. She unclips Bail’s lightsaber and the extra one, and deposits them on the empty bunk. She takes Ben’s lightsaber in her hand, studying the hilt.

It is harder to leave this one.

She wipes her hands down the front of her clothes carelessly, and for the first time sees how dirty she is. Her previously white clothes are gray, stained with ash, smoke, and sweat, while speckles of blood litter her torso. Whose blood it was is anyone’s guess; perhaps from Vesper, Hansa, or two dozen droid-men. It doesn't really matter.

Rey carefully side-steps Chewie and Lando, who let her pass without comment. She goes into the fresher, closing the door behind her. The fresher is not big at all, and so she simply has to turn her head to look into the mirror.

Her face is surprisingly pale, considering how much effort she’s exerted today. There is more blood on her face, dots and splatters, as well as a fresh bruise blossoming on her cheek, likely the result of one of her numerous falls to the stone floors of the Temple. Her hair is flattened in some spots, while hopelessly scattered in others, and Rey reaches up, uncoiling what remains of the braids Leia had so carefully crafted.

She hurriedly yanks her fingers through her hair, a very lazy attempt at brushing it, before bringing it all back in a plain single bun at the nape of her neck.

She picks up the towel hanging over the basin, and uses a bit of water to rub her face clean.

Rey is entirely unsurprised to open the door of the fresher to find Chewie and Lando waiting right outside.

“What happened?” Rey asks. “Up there, and everything. I know the stormtroopers rebelled.”

Chewie and Lando exchange a look, coming to an agreement. Lando turns to Rey.

“It wasn’t going too well,” Lando admits. “Up until then. I mean, the air support was… sufficient. Leia’s call to arms was heard far and wide. We had a great response. But the First Order… Well. They had Star Destroyers, and we didn’t. But then… Well, their ships started behaving strangely.”

 _“Star Destroyers started faltering,”_ Chewie explains. _“We found out it was due to stormtroopers rising up and taking control from officers. TIEs started firing on their own ships. We got similar reports from the ground; stormtroopers turning on the First Order to help the Resistance.”_

“But not every ship joined us,” Lando interjects. “Those, uh… droid-men kept the First Order functioning just fine.”

Rey nods. “Tell me about the end.”

Chewie and Lando exchange another look, this one longer, more pointed.

Rey is pretty sure she knows why.

She makes Chewie say it.

 _“This… bright, bright light burst from the roof of the Temple,”_ Chewie says. _“It blinded every pilot in the sky, brought the battle to a halt. When it finally cleared, the First Order was finished. Star Destroyers fell out of the sky, and the battle on the ground stopped as the droid-men fell. The First Order surrendered quickly, realizing they didn’t have a hope to win, not without the droid-men, the stormtroopers, the Darkstaff, and the Supreme Leader.”_

“Bail is alive,” Rey murmurs, and watches Chewie stiffen.

“Is he, uh…” Lando hesitates. “Going by that name?”

“I think so,” Rey says. “He fought alongside us, at the end. Him, Vesper, and Lior. They helped us take down the droid-men and get to the Darkstaff.”

“And Ben…?”

Lando doesn’t finish his sentence. Rey chooses not to make him say it.

“He sacrificed himself, yes,” she says, quietly, turning her eyes downward, anything to not look at the clear grief in the eyes of the men before her. “I can’t explain how, exactly. The Force, the Light Side… I think it really just came down to him being _him,_ being who he is. He was too bright for the evil in the Darkstaff. He burned it away. And it, um… I think he burned away with it.”

She doesn’t know for sure, not really.

And she certainly doesn’t know how to explain any of this to two non-Force users.

“He told me, before,” Rey says, forcing the words out, “to remember that it was his choice. And I guess… I guess it was. But it doesn’t feel like it.”

Chewie reaches forward, paw stretching, but Rey takes a quick step back, shaking her head.

If Chewie touches her again, now; she’ll break.

She can’t do that. Not yet.

“Where’s Leia?” Rey asks, looking up now.

“At the Palace,” Lando says, gently. “Checking in with High Command. Are you going to tell her about Ben?”

“She already knows,” Rey says. “She’ll have felt him pass. But she should know how it happened, and… Everything else before.”

How Bail turned from the Darkstaff, and fought next to his brother. How the Darkstaff targeted Bail, exposing him to an unimaginable agony, and Ben stepped up to end his suffering.

Leia has lost a son today, but perhaps she’s gained one as well.

Rey wonders if Leia will see things that way.

* * *

Chewie and Lando insist on flying Rey to the Palace, despite her repeated comments that she can walk, it isn’t that far.

 _“You look warp-lagged,”_ Chewie says. _“Ready to pass out at any moment.”_

“I feel that way,” Rey admits, swaying a little, as she stands in the space between the pilot and co-pilot’s seats.

But there are things she needs to do, people she needs to speak with, before she can sleep. She’s a little worried that if she sits down, she won’t be able to get back up.

The sun has fully set over Coruscant now, the endless city washed in blues and blacks, the twilight settling in. Street lights have begun to turn on in the places they are still functioning. The lights of emergency services facilities continue to flash, as Coruscant Security Force cruisers speed through the wrecked streets. The sirens from the lower levels are endless, and Rey feels a headache forming.

It would be easy, so easy, to dip into the Force and let her headache slip away.

But that would mean opening herself to the Force.

Rey is not ready.

The _Millennium Falcon_ touches down in front of the Palace of the Republic. Outside the transparisteel viewport, a crowd is forming, awed eyes and wide smiles, as unmasked and former stormtroopers gather to watch the arrival of the iconic ship.

Lando can’t stop his lazy grin. “That’s about right.”

She hasn’t heard the details, but Rey is certain the _Falcon_ lived up to its reputation during the battle over Coruscant.

The three of them go to the entry ramp, and disembark.

Rey is greeted by dozens of stares.

They gawk at her, taking in her ragged and unkempt clothes, her plain hair, the blaster at her thigh. But repeatedly, their eyes are drawn to the lightsaber that hangs at her hip, the symbol of ancient power, the unique weapon so many have feared, the First Order in particular. She knows it was once enough to make her a threat to them, a desired target. Rey holds her head high, lifting her chin, daring anyone to move to intercept her, to attack her, and then--

She realizes they are not looking at her with disgust or calculation, as they might a threat, an enemy.

They are looking at her with obvious admiration. They stand there in near silence, their gazes stunned and heavy, marveling at Rey. The few voices she hears are soft whispers, and two words: _Master Jedi._

She wonders if Finn and Jannah have spread the news, or if it’s some old formality, where all Jedi are Master Jedi to those who don’t know any better. A sign of enormous respect for the Jedi Order.

She walks forward, and the crowd parts for her, like she is the stern of a ship in a responsive sea.

Chewie and Lando follow, but slowly, giving her space.

Rey feels oddly small, as the recipient of so much awe.

She thinks of the way Ben carried himself in public. She thinks of how he was always a man who felt too big, too strange, and overcompensated for this by standing in the back, hiding near a wall, trailing rather than leading. But how when push came to shove, when the _need_ arose, he would step up. He would carry his legacy, his legacy as a Skywalker and a Jedi. He was never ashamed of it, though shame was never the issue. The issue was always Ben feeling inadequate as the face of so _much._

And Rey, Rey of Nowhere; she is incredibly familiar with that feeling now.

But she rolls her shoulders, and keeps her head high, and accepts the amazement, the admiration.

Ben would want her to.

* * *

Inside the Palace, the mood is much more celebratory.

The chatter is loud and incessant, pouring out of rooms. The Palace has the aura of having once been important and critical, but many of its rooms are empty, bereft of anything except outdated tech. The current (or perhaps, now, previous) occupant of the Palace was the government of Coruscant, the body responsible for Coruscant and the rest of the sector, the de facto capital of the Core Worlds. But even that government could not stretch to fill every room of the Palace that was once the center of power of the entire galaxy.

Food and drink has been procured from out of nowhere, the champagne poured vicariously over marble floors. Rey can hear chanting and singing down several hallways, cries of elation and triumph.

In another universe, perhaps she is joining them.

There are more somber scenes, quieter rooms, where people cluster in smaller groups to grieve and mourn. Rey finds it too difficult to spend time taking in these sights; her own grief is too close to the surface, desperate to be unleashed.

She thinks if she were to start crying, she might never stop.

She climbs the beautiful ivory-colored quartz staircase that dominates the main hall of the house, the sound of her boots on the stone barely registering due to the noise of everything else. Chewie and Lando still follow her, and she finds herself grateful for them, their quiet surety. Even if they are here to check in with the Resistance and everything else, she thinks they’re also here to support her.

They reach the main landing, and a sense of order.

There are more familiar faces up here, Resistance soldiers and officers Rey recognizes. Many of them catch her eye and look away more quickly than the stormtroopers below, and Rey wonders if they know already, if Finn or Jannah have already passed through here and dropped the bombshell. She thinks she can be okay with that.

She walks through a set of tall, imposing mahogany doors, and the room goes still.

The Resistance High Command looks at Rey.

There’s Wynn, looking appropriately frazzled, a bandaged cut on his cheek. There’s Borsk, the Bothan’s fur a little darker in some places with sweat, a kerchief stained with blood tied over one bicep. There’s Elya, surprisingly composed, stunningly immaculate. There’s Beaumont, a dark blue bruise practically pulsing at his temple, the collar of his tan shirt torn. There’s Cha, the top of her flight suit tied around her waist, her bulbous eyes ringed with marks from her goggles. There’s Sien, nursing an amber-colored liquid that Rey can’t tell is liquor or tea. There’s Wedge, his starfighter helmet still tucked under one arm, white hair awkwardly flat in some places due to the helmet.

And there’s Kaydel, wearing a dark green poncho of some kind, her braids partially undone.

And there’s Poe, flight suit still fully zipped up, looking for all the world like he’s waiting for an excuse to hop back into his x-wing.

And there she is, there’s Leia.

Her mousy brown and gray hair has been coiled into a single, elaborate bun at the back of her head. She’s dressed in maroon and gray, maroon trousers and gray blouse, and the fact that her head is level with Poe’s tells Rey she’s standing on a box of some kind, the better to be seen, to survey the table that dominates the room.

The table is covered in maps, and star charts, canvasses of the galaxy. There are graphs detailing the numbers of the First Order’s remaining naval vessels, graphs predicting future trends. There are pulsing positioning devices tracking ships fleeing into the galaxy, aiming to disappear into the Outer Rim or the Unknown Regions. And there are holos, so many holos, of headshots. First Order officers and leadership.

Rey spies the holo of Armitage Hux; a red band under his face declares him DECEASED.

She luxuriates in the satisfaction of that fact.

And then Rey walks forward, taking her place at the table. All of High Command, plus the numerous aides in the room, plus Chewie and Lando behind her, watch.

Rey clears her throat, glancing to Kaydel, whose fingers hover over her datapad, taking notes as always.

“Rey,” Rey says, softly, “Master of the New Jedi Order. Checking in.”

She can feel the gazes intensify on her, but Rey has eyes only for one.

Leia watches her, steadily.

The two women stare at each other, and Rey knows that Leia knows, and Leia knows that Rey knows she knows. But Rey has decided she will let Leia guide that conversation. In the meantime, she will proceed as Ben would have. She’ll debrief with High Command, offer her take on the battle in the Jedi Temple.

“Master Jedi.”

It’s Borsk who speaks. Rey’s a little surprised.

He inclines his large furry head to her.

“Welcome,” he says. “We’re glad to see you here, Master Rey… and may I extend my deepest sympathies for your loss. Master Organa-Solo is… He is a great loss, not only for the Resistance and the Jedi Order, but for you on a personal level, as well. I am sorry.”

She thinks these are the kindest words Borsk Feyl’lya has ever said about Ben.

It is that, more than anything else, that has Rey giving Borsk her first attempt at a smile.

“Thank you,” she says, softly, and the room seems to hold its breath. “I intend to carry on his work.”

_“Carry me home, Rey.”_

Rey clears her throat.

“The Darkstaff has been destroyed,” she says, though she’s sure everyone knows, has gathered it by the way the battle turned. “The credit for that defeat goes entirely to Master Organa-Solo.”

It is easier to say his title, rather than his first name.

She hasn’t said his name since before…

“Evoleth and Fallow Ren are dead,” Rey continues. “I killed Evoleth myself. Fallow was killed by the Darkstaff. It turned on him, intending to consume his Force essence to power itself further. You’ll find both their bodies in the Temple.”

“And Celosia Ren?” Elya asks, calmly.

“Disappeared,” Rey says, plainly.

It was something like an instinct, letting Vesper go. It was Rey thinking of survival, and limits, and what Vesper could take. It was Rey wishing to give Vesper back _something,_ after she’d lost so much. It was Rey knowing Vesper had nothing left for her, nothing in the Resistance.

It was Rey offering Vesper kindness, again.

“As for the matter of Kylo Ren,” Rey says, and the tension in the room ups a notch. “I understand that many will always call him by that name, but I won’t. He is Bail Organa-Solo, in the eyes of the Jedi now. He turned to our side early on in the battle, and was instrumental in subduing the Darkstaff, and bringing Celosia and Fallow Ren to our cause. He stood alongside the Jedi, and was fully prepared to die with us.”

She studies everyone.

“I know that won’t sway much, when it comes to his fate,” she says. “I only offer the perspective of the New Jedi Order. And I would be remiss in not speaking out on his behalf, now, and whenever I am called to do so in the future. The Jedi have always stood for compassion and justice. And the New Jedi Order stands for grace and forgiveness just as strongly.”

She blinks, and she thinks of Bail and Ben in the snow on Ilum, as terror beat like a bird’s wings in her heart, and Ben looked wretched and broken.

_“You killed Dad. I can’t forgive that.”_

_But you did,_ Rey thinks. _You must have. Because you didn’t kill Bail._

Ben’s capacity for forgiveness has always been remarkable. Even Luke commented on it; it was one of the last things he said to Ben, on Ahch-To.

And then there is the last lesson Luke had offered Rey. _No one’s ever really gone._

_“Everything dies, Rey,” Luke murmurs. He glances at Ben, and adds, “Even suns burn out.”_

Rey has a lot of words for Luke now. Possibly some lessons, too.

She nods to High Command instead.

“What next?”

* * *

The debriefing is not as strenuous as Rey feared.

Perhaps it’s simply because there doesn’t seem to be any real _time_ for it. While it grows increasingly obvious there is a party happening in the floors below, the tone of the High Command center is decidedly serious, borderline morose. These are all leaders who have lost soldiers, more soldiers in this single day than the entire war before. It is hard to dredge up even a smile when the faces of the lost are readily available behind a single blink of the eyelids.

Rey describes the battle. She outlines the structure of the Jedi Temple as it is today, rather than in the outdated blueprints Coruscant had on file; the decay has been impactful. She talks about the Darkstaff’s abilities, its nauseating presence. She tells them about the movements of the Knights of Ren, of Vesper’s turn at her hands, Lior’s confused but steadfast loyalty to Bail, Evoleth’s darkness.

She describes the sight of the Organa-Solo Twins fighting side by side.

She cannot look at Leia as she does so, cannot muster up enough bravery to do so.

When it comes to describing _it,_ the big moment, the reason Rey is standing in this room; she falters.

And perhaps it is kindness, perhaps it is that grace and forgiveness Rey spoke of earlier, but High Command doesn’t push her. Perhaps they don’t need the Force to sense how close Rey is to falling apart.

At one point, an aide pressed a cup of caf into Rey’s hands, and she’s clutched it ever since. She stares into it now, but the liquid is too dark for her to see her reflection.

“Master Jedi.”

It is Leia who says the title, this time. Rey looks up.

“May I have a moment?” Leia asks, and Rey knows this was inevitable. She nods, and sets her full cup down, and gets to her feet.

Leia leads her out of the room. They walk down a long hallway, a courtyard below full of celebrating soldiers, large screens broadcasting streams from all over the galaxy, showing the sights of the First Order’s fall, the raucous triumph felt everywhere. Rey stares at these antics, feeling a little like she is witnessing something alien, something she cannot fully grasp.

They walk through another tall archway, and these rooms are emptier and darker, and yet they continue on, and Rey wonders what it is Leia is looking for.

They step through a final doorway.

It’s a conservatory. Tall glass windows dominate the walls, couches and armchairs scattered within. Outside the window, Coruscant is a dark mass speckled with lights. Overhead, the sky is merely black smog, the pollution too thick for proper starlight to sink into the atmosphere. Yet it is somehow quiet in this room, even with so much left clearly happening outside.

“This room was artificially soundproofed,” Leia explains, reading Rey’s bemused expression. “The idea being that the legislators and VIPs in the building would have a place to go in order to rest, and reflect. It seems strange, to have a sun room like this in this city-planet, but… Well. Coruscant has always been good at pretending.”

“It’s lovely,” Rey breathes.

Exactly what she needs now.

Leia walks to a small sofa, a soft periwinkle color. Rey goes to her, and sits at her side, and for a moment, they sit in silence, the only noise being the echoes of the people in the halls behind them.

Outside, the city stretches on.

“Galactic Basic Standard is a pretty decent language,” Leia says, and of all the things Rey had been quietly preparing for, this starter had been _none_ of them. “It’s not the most beautiful; I’ve always been partial to Festian, myself, but Lannik has a nice melody to it, and Jessaran is so unique. And Naboo, of course, but I’m biased. Yet, if I had to choose the language that would be the most widely spoken language in the galaxy… Yes, I think Basic is fine. Most of the time.”

Rey waits, knowing Leia has a point.

The older woman sighs.

“In Basic, we have the word _widow,_ for the wife who loses her husband,” Leia murmurs. “And we have the word _orphan_ for the daughter who loses her parents. But we have no word for the mother who loses her child.”

Rey chances a look.

Leia’s eyes are wide, and dark. She stares straight ahead of her, at the night outside.

“I, um…” Rey swallows, hard, and pushes forward. “In spite of everything, I was… I was so surprised. I thought… There was so much building up to it, so many warnings, but still, I was… I didn’t expect it. I wasn’t ready.”

“Ben made a good effort,” Leia muses, and Rey’s heart thuds in her chest at the soft way Leia says his name. “But there was no preparing. Not for you, and not for me. And I think he knew that, he just--”

“Needed to try, anyway.”

And isn’t that just it? Isn’t that Ben?

Careful, kind, patient, thoughtful… Someone who was so good at trying, again and again, when all else might be lost.

“I’m sorry,” Rey whispers.

Leia takes Rey’s hand in hers, and squeezes it.

Tears are pouring silently but swiftly down Leia’s pale, aged face.

“I am too, Rey. I am, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twilight:  
> \--n. the soft glowing light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon, caused by the refraction and scattering of the sun's rays from the atmosphere.  
> \--n. a period or state of obscurity or ambiguity
> 
> I think this is the saddest chapter of the story? The ball gets rolling on the next part of the story next chapter.


	23. You Know Where To Find Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Can you really not sympathize? How thrilled are you to live in a galaxy that doesn’t have Ben Organa-Solo in it?”

The Room of a Thousand Fountains is fresh, and lush, shimmering in its prime. Trees stretch upwards to the massive ceiling, where actual sunlight dares to slip in through glass windows. Artificial lights glitter in every corner, creating the additional sunlight required to keep the plants and flowers in the room flourishing.

Alderaanian flame-roses line the loose gravel path Rey walks on, their dark petals like molten lava, while pale purple everlilies sprout out of crystal ferns. Poola blossoms float lazily through the air, their bioluminescent glow casting hazy shadows on the stone walls. Liana vines, leaves dark and sharp, have curled around the thin neck of an opulent fountain that spurts crystal clear water over a pocket of snowblooms.

Rey lifts her hand, letting her fingers brush over the soft leaves of a staggering weeping willow.

A warm, friendly breeze passes over her. She thinks she might hear the sound of a bird call or two.

Everything is green, and lovely.

“Rey.”

She turns her head.

Ben stands ahead of her, boots still on the gravel path, standing under a large Aphor tree. He’s dressed in his typical uniform of light shirt, dark trousers, leather boots, and black jacket. His lightsaber hangs at his hip. His arms are crossed over his chest, and the light from overhead refracts off the gold die at his throat.

He smiles at her in the sunlight.

“Ben,” Rey breathes.

She walks to him. Clumps of lavender brush up by her knees, and blackberries from a Hsuberry tree are crushed under her boots. Green daisies blossom as she passes, caught up in the sheer life and joy that Rey exudes to be here, in this room of so much life and nature.

“Rey.”

She has reached the Aphor tree, but the space under it is empty. Rey frowns, looking around. A bubbling brook passes just behind her, a small bridge spanning it. Below the bridge, glowfish swim, their scales generating small darts of light as they move.

“Ben?” Rey asks, frowning.

“Rey.”

She walks forward, past the brook and bridge, through a thicket of tall sourcane. Golden-yellow starflowers sway in the stalks, and Rey cranes her neck, peering around. White bulbs of Towering Bith are just ahead of her, their purple stems sticking out amidst the more muted browns and greens of Sapir plants.

“Ben?” Rey says, raising her voice. “Where are you?”

She pauses, having reached a clearing. The grass is oddly short and flat, like it’s been cut recently, and harshly, a far cry from the wildness that dominates the rest of the room. A single flower grows in the center of the room, and Rey approaches it.

It’s a sunblossom, pretty, recognizable by its yellow petals misted with red.

“Rey,” Ben whispers in her ear. “You know where to find me.”

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

Smoggy sunlight slips through the windows of the conservatory in the Palace of the Republic. The room is warm, almost stuffy with it, and Rey shifts, dislodging the fabric covering her. She’d recognize Lando’s blue cape anywhere.

She wonders when he came in and tucked his cape around her, like a blanket. She doesn’t remember falling asleep; the last thing she remembers is Leia brushing out her hair, and braiding in the Alderaanian mourning braid out of her tangled tresses, following a devastating tradition Rey wasn’t ever interested in participating in. Leia’s soft strokes might have been the thing that ultimately knocked her exhausted mind and body out.

She must have looked cold at some point. Or perhaps it was a simple, and kind, gesture of affection. Either way, Rey sits up, and carefully folds the cape, leaving it on the sofa.

She walks out of the conservatory.

The Palace is quieter than it had been earlier. Rey peers down into the courtyard, and finds it much emptier than it had been, people gathered in small groups at little tables, eating a meal. A few aides pass through, carrying datapads or drinks. A Zilkin limps, one of his three-toed feet heavily bandaged, his green skin waxy with apparent blood loss. A handful of pilots appear, shrugging out of their flight suits as they walk, exhaustion apparent in their lidded eyes and trembling hands.

Rey reaches the High Command room, but decides against entering it.

She’s hungry.

She walks down the large staircase, keeping her steps light. She’s managed to avoid eye contact with everyone who passes her, not willing to partake in any extended conversation. A headache is buzzing in her ears, again.

She resists the instinct to open up to the Force.

She isn’t ready.

It’s easy to find the kitchen of the Palace, following the smell of cooking food. Rey wanders inside, discovering a big industrial kitchen, all steel and chrome, almost painfully bright in its elegance. Resistance soldiers, many of whom are commonly found taking on kitchen shifts in the base on Ajan Kloss, are manning the counters, tossing frying pans on the stoves, stirring bulbous bowls. They look up when the kitchen door swings behind Rey, and several offer her hesitant smiles. Rey feels her mouth curving in an automatic response.

A Volpai, his yellow skin and black stripes standing out amongst the lighter monochrome colors, looks up at Rey from near an oven.

“Hi, Rey,” Tanau says.

“Hi, Tanau,” Rey says, walking to his side. Though the conversation is similar, the time, the setting, the mood is wildly off from the mess hall on Ajan Kloss. “What’s good?”

“Mostly rations, I’m afraid,” Tanau replies, putting a plate together for her, his four arms moving in perfect sync. She recognizes energy pudding, protein cubes, and a ration bar. But then he stretches behind him, and procures a Warra nut cookie from out of nowhere.

Smiling, he adds, “And a cookie, for one of the biggest heroes of this war.”

Rey flushes. “Tanau, I’m not--”

He pushes the plate into her chest, handing her a water bottle as well.

“Take it,” he says, gently. “And eat it all.”

Rey swallows, accepting the items. “Thank you.”

He studies her, black eyes inscrutable. “I was sorry to hear about Ben, Rey.”

“Oh.” Rey nods. She’ll have to start getting used to people offering her condolences. “Thank you.”

“He was a kind man,” Tanau continues, and Rey thinks, _Oh, no._ “He always offered to help unload food shipments when he saw we had one. And quick to volunteer to use the Force to help us move something particularly heavy. He blushed whenever we would thank him, claim it was nothing. But kindness is never nothing. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes,” Rey says, her voice a croak. Tears prickle in her eyes.

Tanau grips her shoulder.

“I saw Rose ten minutes ago,” he says, jerking his head to an open hallway. “I am sure she would like the company.”

* * *

Though she is not convinced it’s a good idea, Rey takes Tanau’s suggestion. She knows she will have to muster up the strength to face her friends sooner rather than later. She already feels guilty for all but abandoning Finn and Jannah yesterday after they left the Temple. They deserve to have a Master who will check in with them, make sure they don’t need anything, debrief on the battle, hear their pains and worries. Ben would have spoken with them by now.

The guilt is _real._

Rey decides to start with Rose.

The Palace backs up into a large outdoor patio. Muffled Coruscant sunlight is bright overhead, somewhat obscured by thick gray clouds and the ever present smog of pollution. Rickety tables and chairs litter the patio, soldiers clustered together, gossiping and chatting over plates of rations. It is loud outside, Galactic City rumbling to life; even though it can’t have been one standard day since the battle, life on the urban planet goes on.

Rey finds Rose quickly enough.

She’s sitting alone, at her own small, round table. Rey watches as she slowly peels the wrapper off her ration bar, studying the unappetizing brown food inside. She picks at it with her fingers, before grudgingly pulling a bit off and putting it in her mouth.

“I’ll split my cookie with you, if you’d like,” Rey says, coming up next to her.

Rose twists around.

 _“Rey,”_ she breathes, and Rey barely gets to set her plate down before Rose is on her, the shorter woman nearly tackling Rey with the aggression of her embrace. Rey hugs her back just as surely, feeling something in her chest relax, all her pent up anxiety and sorrow briefly alleviated by the tender touch of someone she loves, someone who loves her back. Rose smells like oil, as always, and her hair is clearly tangled, tied back haphazardly. She is in desperate need of a shower.

Rey knows she probably needs one too.

She manages to detangle herself from Rose, and sits down in the chair next to her.

“It’s good to see you up and about,” Rose says. “We were getting worried.”

Rey frowns. “Why?”

“Because you’ve been asleep for like twenty standard hours.”

Rey stares. She’s never slept that long in her life. _“What?”_

“Hey, no worries,” Rose interjects. “Maker knows you needed it. Finn and Jannah have been checking in on you every few hours or so; after they woke up from their sixteen and eighteen hour naps, too.”

Rey digests this, fiddling with the wrapper on her water bottle. No wonder her throat feels so parched. She unscrews it, taking a long gulp, before setting it down.

“How are you?” Rey asks. “How’d it go after we separated in the Temple?”

Rose shrugs, taking up her bar. She eats with more enthusiasm now. “Total chaos. I honestly don’t remember much of it. I do remember how the stormtroopers seemingly turned all at once. One of them saved my life, tackled me before one of those awful droid-men could shoot me. She introduced herself as RN-3498. I started calling her Erin, and she’s now taken to introducing herself as Erin.”

Rey smiles. “That’s how Finn got his name from Poe.”

“I know,” Rose says, grinning. “Anyhoo, once the stormtroopers joined us it got a bit easier, but not totally. Those droid-men… and there were quite a few First Order officers on the ground, and they were even crueler to the stormtroopers than us, believe it or not! It was ugly, and terrible. And then… Then it all stopped.”

_Vesper’s nails biting into the skin of Rey’s wrist._

_“No! No, Ben! Ben!”_

_The light._

Rey pulls herself together. “Yes. It stopped.”

Rose looks at her, and her teardrop shaped eyes are bright. “I’m so sorry, Rey. So, so sorry.”

“Me, too,” Rey manages.

“It’s so kriffing unfair,” Rose spits. A tear spills down her sand-colored cheek. “He should _be_ here. He worked so hard for it, he did so much, he saved us! And… And he isn’t. And I can’t really believe I’ll never see him again.”

Rey nods, her heart in her throat.

“I shouldn’t even be saying these things,” Rose mutters. “Not when your loss is so much bigger.”

“We both lost him, Rose,” Rey murmurs. “It’s not a competition. He was your friend, too. He loved you very much.”

Rose sniffles. “I know.”

“Where are Jannah and Finn?”

“I think they’re down at the old Galactic Opera House,” Rose says, and at Rey’s confused look, she explains, “It’s where the stormtroopers are being housed at the moment. It isn’t ideal, but it’s got enough space for all of them, and pretty cushy seats for them to sleep in. A big chunk of the Sci/Med Team is down there, examining them all. Asking them questions, seeing what might be going on with the brainwashing. I think Finn’s right though, I think the Darkstaff ironically… Snapped them out of it?”

Rey nods, thinking to that blur of the battle, the stormtroopers fighting so viciously against the droid-men.

“I’ll need to see them,” Rey murmurs. She tears her Warra nut cookie in half, passing one half to Rose. “What about High Command?”

“Still here,” Rose replies. “For the foreseeable future, probably. The Coruscant Security Force and local Coruscant government has been in and out all day, too. Initially to talk about clean up, which parts of the city might be too dangerous to inhabit, First Order officers who got away… But now I think they’re lobbying.”

“Lobbying?”

“Yeah. Lobbying Leia to get Coruscant on the short list of future Republic capitals. We can’t go back to Hosnian Prime.”

It is that comment, more than anything else, that reminds Rey of someone else she has neglected to ask about.

“Where’s Bail?”

Rose stiffens, casting a glance behind her, at the other dining groups. A few of them have been looking at Rey and Rose with curiosity, and all quickly turn away when Rose looks back at them. Rey frowns, watching this movement, as Rose turns back to her.

“Maybe be careful about that,” she mutters. “Talking about him.”

“Why?”

“He’s… decidedly not welcome here,” Rose says. “A lot of people are angry he survived the battle at all.”

Rey scoffs. “Well, he did. Where is he?”

“Underground. I guess the Emperor had a secret prison built into the Imperial Palace during the war. It’s got cells that are like… Force neutralizing--”

“Force _what?”_

“You can’t use the Force in them. That’s what Finn told me.”

Rey knows there are a few things in the galaxy that can neutralize the Force in an area; ysalamiri lizards, for example. But Force neutralizers are extremely rare.

“So he’s down there,” Rey summarizes. “Makes sense. What happens to him next?”

Rose shrugs. “No idea. It’s all in the early stages. But, um… I’ve heard a lot of people pushing for the death penalty. Kylo Ren isn’t exactly beloved among the Resistance.”

No, no he is not.

A fact Ben was extremely uncomfortable with.

Occasionally, someone new would join or visit the Resistance, see Ben, and treat him with extreme prejudice. On one memorable occasion, a recruit fresh from Christophsis physically attacked Ben on sight, fists and all. Ben had been so surprised by the attack he’d gone down easily, until Rey had come to her senses and torn the recruit off him with the Force. The recruit had been stunned to learn that Kylo Ren had an identical twin, and apologized profusely afterward.

But the incident stuck with Ben.

It was a painful reminder of the emotional damage his _face_ could do.

“Rose,” Rey says, carefully, “How do I get to his cell?”

* * *

She can’t explain the urge.

The instinct that has some subliminal part of her insisting on visiting Bail in his cell, in the underground prison of the Palace. She has no idea what she intends to get out of this meeting, what she anticipates will happen, but she goes anyway.

The prison is remarkably well-hidden. Rey skulks down dark corridors, slips through a door disguised as a plain wall (reminding her of the strange elevator in the Coruscant Underworld), darts down narrow hallways. She runs into very few people, until she runs into no one at all. The only sounds are the creaks of the Palace above, the occasional drip of a leaking pipe. The temperature plummets as she walks further downward.

Rey soon emerges into an office room of sorts, with a few desks and chairs. Three Resistance soldiers are in this space, sitting around a desk, playing a card game. They look up when Rey enters the room.

“Hello,” she says. She doesn’t recognize any of them. “I’m here to see Kylo Ren.”

They blink at her.

“You’re Rey, right?” one of them, a tall man with bright orange hair, asks. “The Jedi?”

“Yes.”

He exchanges a glance with his fellow soldiers. They seem to communicate something, as the three of them turn back to look at her.

“Are you here to kill him?”

Rey narrowly avoids letting her jaw drop in surprise at the question. “Um. No. Just to talk.”

“Oh.” One of the others, a woman with freckle-splattered skin, says. “That’s too bad.”

“We’d let you, you know,” says the last, a man with heavily tattooed bare arms. “If you wanted to. We’d look the other way.”

“You’d be doing us all a huge favor,” the first man says.

“Save us all a lot of time,” the woman comments.

“Not today,” Rey interrupts, voice firm. “Just talking today. I have… I have questions for him.”

The three guards nod.

“Makes sense,” the first man says, getting to his feet. He walks to a plain white wall, where a steel palm pad has been embedded into the stone. “Questions about that evil stick, right?”

Rey imagines the Darkstaff finding out the Resistance has soldiers calling it an _evil stick._ “Among others.”

The man presses his hand to the pad. There’s a _click,_ and the wall opens, revealing a dark hallway of black stone. A handful of lights set in the wall flicker sporadically. The air inside is cold, but somehow damp, too. Rey can see cells on either side of the hallway.

A chill that has nothing to do with the atmosphere of the hallway runs down her spine; it’s the lack of the Force inside.

Rey’s never felt anything like it before.

“Do you… Are you monitoring the prisoner?” Rey asks. “Cameras, microphones?”

“Do you not want us to?” the second man asks, sharp eyebrow raised. 

Though it makes her feel awful just to say it, Rey says, “I might get a little… carried away. In my questioning.”

As anticipated, the guards relax.

“We might, uh, forget to keep an eye on him for a bit then,” the first guard says. “Ten minutes?”

“Sure. Thank you.”

Rey steps into the hallway, and the door slams shut behind her.

Her steps echo off black tile. The air is shockingly cold, and Rey shivers, wishing she’d worn a jacket. It’s also alarmingly dark, the flickering lights threatening to turn fully off any moment; Rey wonders if this was a psychological weapon used to make the prisoners afraid they’d be left in the dark without warning. Rey glances into the cells as she walks, cells that are empty save for a cot and toilet, a solid wall of glass separating the cell from the hallway at large.

The Force is _gone,_ and Rey feels like she’s walking with half a lung. Her breaths are too small.

She finds him in the last cell, furthest from the door.

Bail is sitting on his cot, which is only covered by a thin mattress and ratty blanket. His head is tipped back, pressed against the stone, the scar bisecting his face paler than normal in the bad lighting. His eyes are closed, hands folded neatly in his lap, over his crossed legs. He’s dressed plainly, in the clothes that must have been under his uniform: a plain black sweater and black trousers.

If he’d had the Force, he would have sensed her by now.

Rey taps the glass of his cell.

He jumps, something Rey thinks she’d find amusing in another situation. Instead, it only makes her feel sad, sad because of the way his expression shutters when he sees her, that blank Kylo Ren mask sliding over his features.

“Don’t do that,” Rey spits.

Internally, she winces. She’d hoped to be more compassionate.

“Do what?” Bail asks, and his voice is a dagger to her chest. While his face with that distinctive scar has always made it easy for her to differentiate him from Ben, his voice has no such markers. His voice now is scratchy, and hoarse, like Ben sounds in the morning, after a long night.

“You can’t hide from me,” Rey says, voice harsh. “Don’t pull that _Kylo Ren_ nonsense on me, Bail.”

He blinks.

And then he _shrugs._

“Instinct, I guess,” he muses. “But you’re right. You’ve always been good at seeing through my bullshit. I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Were you expecting anyone?”

He shrugs again.

“Your mother?” Rey tries.

Bail glances at her, before his eyes move away again, focusing on the plain black wall. “She’s been here a couple times.”

“What has she said to you?”

“It’s all a show,” Bail says. “She asks me questions about the First Order. Asks me where I think First Order officers might have slithered away to, now that we’ve lost and the Resistance, the entire _galaxy,_ is out for our blood. She asks me for codes, for access to the data banks and computers that have been salvaged from fallen Star Destroyers and cruisers.”

Rey frowns. “Why is that a show?”

“Because she’s trying to make it look like I’m giving up this information grudgingly,” Bail replies. “Like they’ll need to make a deal with me to get me to tell them more. As if I won’t answer anything the Resistance asks me. As if I give a _fuck_ what happens to the First Order, or me, now.”

He bites his lip.

The mask has slipped, and his grief is raw.

“Bail,” Rey whispers, her compassion returning to her in full force.

“Ben was the only good thing in this entire kriffing galaxy,” Bail snarls. “He was the only thing worth _anything_ here. He was too… He was just too _good._ Too kind, too gentle, too… Too much. I shouldn’t be surprised. This is an uncaring and cruel universe. He was never meant to survive in it.”

“He could have,” Rey spits. “If you hadn’t unearthed the Darkstaff--”

“You think I don’t _know that?”_ Bail asks, and he gets to his feet. The glass stands between them, but Rey knows she would have held her ground even if there hadn’t been a barrier. “You think I haven’t spent every second since he died thinking about how, if it wasn’t for me, he’d still be alive? You think I haven’t replayed that battle over and over again in my head, trying to figure out how I could have changed it? Wishing I’d picked up the Darkstaff? Wishing I’d forced him to kill me when I asked, instead--”

“When you _asked?”_

Bail glances at her, and then looks away, shaking his head.

Dark shadows line his eyes. Rey is certain he hasn’t slept. She’s not sure she’s ever seen anyone as hopeless as he looks now, which is saying a lot, coming from a former scavenger on Jakku. If anything, he reminds her of when she first met Ben in the _Millennium Falcon,_ and saw his sorrow and misery--

It clicks then.

“You don’t think you deserve to be saved,” Rey whispers.

He looks at her again, frowning.

And then he _laughs._

“Of course not,” Bail says, scoffing. “I know I don’t.”

“That’s not… That’s not true, Bail, look--”

“You want to know how I know?” Bail snaps, glaring at her. “It’s because the _only thing_ I regret is leaving Ben. I don’t regret blowing up the Hosnian System. I don’t regret nearly annihilating the Resistance. I don’t regret killing Snoke. I don’t regret any of the mass killings, the genocides, the destruction, the cruelty I have inflicted, either by my hand or the hand of the First Order. I don’t regret trying to kill Luke, I don’t regret nearly firing on my mother, and I certainly don’t regret killing my father.”

Cold, dark cold, rushes over Rey.

Bail stares at her and he seems, if he is anything… confused. Confused by her horror.

“Come on, Rey,” he says, shaking his head. _“I’m a monster._ You’ve always known that about me. Not only do I not _deserve_ to be saved… But I don’t _want_ to be saved. I’m not interested in redemption. I never have been.”

This, Rey thinks, explains a lot about Bail.

It certainly explains why he always turned down his family’s pleas for him to come home.

It wasn’t that he didn’t think he deserved to, that he could; it was simply because he didn’t want to.

And it explains even further how devastating Ben’s refusal to follow him was. How personal.

“So, now what?” Rey asks. “Ben is dead. The First Order has lost. The Knights of Ren are no more. What happens to you?”

Bail shrugs, inelegantly. “Death penalty wouldn’t be so bad. It’d make a lot of people happy.”

“Yeah, you included,” Rey says.

“Aw, sweetheart,” Bail says, and he is smoke and sultriness and despicable. “Can you really not sympathize? How thrilled are you to live in a galaxy that doesn’t have Ben Organa-Solo in it?”

Rey stares at him.

He blinks back, impassive.

“I told you once that you and I are the same,” he murmurs.

_“But he didn’t stop you from coming here, either,” Bail muses. “He didn’t prevent your paths from diverging. We really are the same, aren’t we, Rey? Abandoned, and alone?”_

Rey swallows, but the tears leak out of her anyway. She is not quick enough to wipe them away, and the fizzing light of the prison catches on the moisture on her cheeks.

She half-expects Bail to laugh at her for this blatant display of emotion, but he only sighs.

“I’m sorry.”

Rey gawks, lowering her hand. “What?”

“I’m _sorry,”_ Bail repeats. “Ben asked me to be kind to you, and I’m fucking that up. Kindness has never been my forte.”

“No,” Rey agrees.

“Why did you come down here, Rey?” Bail asks. “Did Commander-in-Chief Organa send you?”

Even now… Even now he won’t call her _Mom._

“No,” Rey says. “No, I… I just decided to come down here. To see you.”

“My instinct here is to say something cruel and cutting,” Bail comments. “To sneer and remind you that I’m not Ben. We share the same face, same body, same voice, but we are very different people. Ben was the better one. I’m just a poor excuse for him. But I am trying to be kind to you, and I won’t say that. So if you’re here to follow some kind of masochistic urge… I’m not going to indulge you. You’re pretty, Rey, but you aren’t my type.”

“Yeah?” Rey says, and then before she can stop herself: “What _is_ your type?”

Bail runs a hand through his greasy, mangy hair.

“Cold,” he murmurs.

* * *

Rey returns to the _Millennium Falcon._

The sun is beginning to set over the horizon, and Rey figures they’re approaching the twenty-four standard hours mark of the end of the battle. A full day after. The sun setting on the first full day of a universe without Ben Organa-Solo in it.

The sky is streaked in red, gold, and orange, and Rey doesn’t wish to see any of it.

She walks inside the _Falcon._

It’s quiet. She checks the cockpit, fresher, and galley, but there is no sign of Lando or Chewie anywhere, and she figures they must still be in the Palace, commiserating with friends or comforting Leia, maybe. Rey hesitates in the galley, and then she boils water for a cup of Gatalentan tea.

_“Han had some in his ship?” she asks._

_“Maybe,” Ben allows. “But I got this from my things. I carry Gatalentan tea with me everywhere. There’s something about the smell I find comforting.” He glances at Rey, as if daring her to laugh._

The smell of the tea now, citrus and honey, reminds Rey of Ben. 

She recalls reading somewhere, or perhaps it was a fact told to her by someone on base, that smell is the sense most tied to memory. That there is something about the smell of things that tethers, that dregs up even the most scarce of memories, the buried ones, the forgotten ones.

She holds the mug to her nose and inhales deeply.

Ben is so present in Rey’s mind, in her memory, that the effect is not as drastic as it might otherwise have been, if she’d smelled something reminiscent of Jakku. 

She carries the mug with her anyway, returning to the bunk room.

Rey is tired, despite having slept for most of the day. She toes her boots off, tossing them carelessly aside, and peels her clothes off her body. She has a constellation of bruises and cuts peppered over her arms and legs, dried blood sticky to the touch, and so she sighs, and caves, and slips into the fresher for a shower.

It does make her feel better.

The water, making her feel a bit more human.

She keeps her mourning braid intact.

She returns to the bunk room, where her tea has become lukewarm, but she slurps it up anyway, the scavenger in her deploring the idea of wasting any kind of nutrition. She pulls on sleep clothes, simple light drawstring trousers, and pauses, considering.

Then she bends, and tugs a shirt out of Ben’s bag.

It’s dark blue, loose, and huge on her, but she pulls it over her head anyway. Unlike the tea, the shirt actually smells like _Ben,_ natural and free, sunlit and warm. She hugs her arms around herself, pressing her nose into her own shoulder, and lets herself simply stand there. The _Falcon_ is quiet, fully powered down, and the only noises come from outside the ship, the rumble of Coruscant itself.

Rey sinks down onto one of the mattresses on the floor.

She pulls her personal communicator out of her bag, opening it to find a message from Finn.

_Hey; please message me when you get this, you were asleep when we left. Jannah and I are in the Opera House, working with the stormtroopers. There are thousands, all in varying states of brainwashing recovery. Some are fully up and about, entirely awake, like Jannah and me were originally; but others haven’t even started the process, since their friends physically dragged them away from the First Order. Most of the Resistance’s medical team is here, checking in, making evaluations, compiling reports of patterns and trends… There’s a lot of work, so Jannah and I are thinking of sticking around here for the time being. It doesn’t seem like anyone’s in a huge hurry to get back to Ajan Kloss. I’ve only seen Poe for about half an hour this morning, when he came out of High Command to scarf down some caf and a bit of toast. He told me the Core Worlds are all sending political representatives to meet with Leia, to campaign for their own causes. They are treating Leia as the de facto head of… Well, a government, I guess. No one really knows what’s going to happen._

_And it’s so messed up. None of us have had a chance to so much as BREATHE. Nor to mourn… Leia has a son to grieve, but everyone’s acting like that’s just something to be done later. And, I mean, I’m the first to say I don’t really know anything about family, but… That doesn’t seem right._

_It didn’t seem right to leave you alone in that Palace, but the Resistance is desperate for anyone with knowledge of stormtroopers to come out and help, so we went. Poe, Rose, Lando, and Chewie all swore to keep an eye on you. Poe says High Command’s got a ton of work to go through and they’d love to get your input. Rose is leading a maintenance project on Resistance ships, to get them ready for Deep Space travel, for anyone who wants to go back to Ajan Kloss or go home for a bit, so she’ll have a lot of repair work for you if you want it. Lando says it’s fine if you want to break into his stash of whiskey (?!?!) on the_ Falcon, _just that you need to tell him when you do, so he can drink with you. He doesn’t want you to drink alone._

_And Chewie says he’ll fly you anywhere, if you want to leave. Just don’t pull a Skywalker, okay? I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re feeling, but… We need you. We all do. You’ve still got us, you’ve still got a family. So don’t go far. And come back._

Rey blinks.

_“No! Come back, come back!”_

_“Quiet, girl.”_

She pulls herself out of the memory, the sun-drenched sands, the weeping little girl.

She types a quick response for Finn.

_Woke up a little bit ago, had food with Rose. Is there a word for a meal that follows after missing dinner, breakfast, and lunch? A first for me, missing any meal, much less three. It was good to see her. I’m glad she’s okay._

_I went downstairs and visited Bail. He’s doing about how you’d expect. Pretty anarchist right now. Doesn’t seem to care about anything. No one’s been able to give me insight on what happens next, so I guess we’ll just have to table the issue of what to do with him for now._

_I’m glad you and Jannah are helping with the stormtroopers. It’s a good cause, and no one can help like the two of you can. The Jedi Order doesn’t have anything we desperately need to do at the moment, so take your time there._

_I don’t have anywhere to go, so you can find me at the Palace or in the_ Falcon _if you want to check in. I mean, a few more changes of clothes would be nice… I’m assuming there will have to be a supply run to Ajan Kloss at some point. And I’ll have to fly out to Yavin IV some time. I’d like you and Jannah with me for that. Poe might have already spoken to Kes and told him about Ben, but I’m sure the kids will still be grieving and want to see us. And Temiri’s got all the Jedi texts, though hopefully he hasn’t opened the box. I might give him Ben’s letter anyway, though. The Jedi aren’t extinct, but Ben did die. I think he deserves to hear what Ben thought of him, how highly he thought of him, how he admired him. Don’t you? Is that a bad idea?_

Rey doesn’t think it’s a bad idea, but she’s fully prepared to believe she isn’t operating at her best right now.

_See you soon, Finn. All my love to you and Jannah. I am so proud of you both._

She transmits the message and powers the device off, setting it on the empty bunk next to her. She shuffles around on the mattress, getting herself comfortable, lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling.

She twists the ring on her finger around, and around, and around.

* * *

In the room of the Force nexus, in the Temple of the Jedi, the light from the dying sun is nearly blinding.

Vesper’s nails dig into Rey’s wrist, threatening to break the skin, and leave bloody crescent-shaped marks.

Rey’s mouth is open in a silent scream, her free hand extended, stretching, for Ben.

With a strange sucking noise, the light disappears.

Vesper falls to the stone floor with a thud. Across the room, Finn and Jannah fall as well. Bail is crumpled on the ground.

“Rey.”

Ben stands there, tall, eyes focused on Rey. In his right hand, he holds the Darkstaff, now little more than a cracked stick of wood, black and ashy, the remnants of a log on a fire. Blood trickles out of his nose, but he doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes are on Rey.

He raises his free hand, extending it to her.

A flame rises out of his palm, a flame that flickers until it becomes a solid beam of yellow, not unlike the color of Rey’s recently built gold lightsaber, not unlike the color that burned under Ben’s hands on the floor of the _Millennium Falcon._

The gold fire lifts, and begins to approach Rey. It moves slowly, calmly, unlike any flame Rey has ever known. As she watches, the thin wick of it twists, the flame molding into an oval shape, or a disc.

Rey frowns, turning her arm, so the gold disc settles over her palm. It flips, the oval lying perpendicular over her hand.

She frowns, looking up to Ben.

“Rey,” Ben says, quietly. “You know where to find me.”

* * *

Rey opens her eyes, without remembering when she closed them.

She sits straight up, and nearly causes herself to tumble out of her nest of blankets, as she fumbles desperately for Ben’s rucksack. She yanks the flap open, her hand diving inside, to retrieve two things: his most recent notebook, and _Ways of the Cosmic Force._

Rey flips through his notebook, her eyes roaming over the pages, Ben’s neat handwriting. Words jump out at her, questions, thoughts, and she skims them all, searching, searching…

And then: _there._

The title on the page: LOTHAL.

She runs her finger over the lines of text.

_It was Jannah’s decision to go… Met Zorii Bliss of the Lothal Resistance… Map to the Old Temple… Destroyed, sunk underground… Wolves (Loth-wolves?)... Room of Mosaics (?)._

The Prime Jedi.

The Force ghosts, the lightsabers, the illustrations of Force powers, including healing and telekinesis.

The dyad myth.

Ben has sketched out a crude depiction of it, the two figures. The archway, the fog, the doorway. One figure turned, the other calling for them.

 _Looks like an illustration of the Dyad Myth in_ Ways of the Cosmic Force… _Strange, since the myth is clearly a myth, can’t actually be real… Maybe the other illustrations in the Temple are myths, too?... The Prime Jedi as a myth makes sense; the ideal as impossible to reach, only to be used as an epic tale, a legend… But the Force ghosts are real, we know that now… But the Old Jedi didn’t?... Luke said once that it was Obi-Wan’s Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, who taught Obi-Wan and Yoda how to return from the Netherworld… A lost power?_

And there, on the page following the myth, as it had been on the wall next to the myth in the Temple.

The gold disc.

Rey hurries, grabbing _Ways of the Cosmic Force._ Ben had left a bookmark, and it is easy to find the last page he’d looked at.

_Ben tilts the text, showing her a drawing of what appears to be a yellow disc. It’s largely flat, save for what looks to either be a line of windows or silver running through its center._

_“This is some kind of station, I think,” Ben explains._

_“Station?” Rey repeats. “A space station?”_

_I knew it,_ Rey thinks, looking from the yellow disc on the text page, to Ben’s attempted drawing in his notebook. The colors are off, but the shape is identical. _I knew it looked familiar, I knew I’d seen it before._

She looks at the drawing of it in the notebook, and the black holes cluster that surrounds it.

And Rey knows what she has to do.

* * *

Bail is awake, feet planted on the floor, elbows on his knees, chin resting in his hands when Rey comes screeching to a halt in front of the glass wall of his cell. He frowns, brow creasing, surprised by Rey’s return visit.

“Bail,” Rey gasps. “Bail, I need your help.”

His frown deepens. “What could you possibly need _my_ help with?”

“I need a pilot who knows how to fly through the Maw.”

_“When Bail and I were thirteen, he took us to see it, flew us through it, in the Falcon,” Ben says. “He showed us how to navigate it.”_

Bail stares, his jaw loosening with his surprise.

“Why do you need to go through the Maw?” he asks, bewildered.

“I need to go _into_ the Maw,” Rey says, breathless.

 _“Into_ the Maw? If this is some kind of suicide attempt, I’m not interested in helping you--”

“Bail,” Rey interjects. “Bail, you’re going to want to help me. You’re going to want to come with me.”

“Gods, _why?”_

“Because,” Rey says, and she smiles, and Bail stares. “Because, if we go into the Maw… We can bring Ben back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm interested in the idea of Kylo Ren as this unrepentant force of darkness and ambition. So that's what Bail is, and has been, in this series. He's just not interested in being redeemed, and uninterested in living in the Light. He never has been. He is motivated chiefly by his own beliefs and interests.
> 
> Ben: My last request to you is that you be kind to Rey.  
> Bail: .... oh god.... oh please..... ask me to do ANYTHING else.....
> 
> I find this relationship between Bail and Rey very interesting. I think Bail is repulsed by Rey! I think he is deeply disturbed that she knows him so well and intimately. Aside from Ben (and maybe Vesper, or Lior, or another Knight), Rey has seen Bail express emotion more than anyone else has. I think she freaks him out. You know that John Mulaney joke about cheating and a relationship ending badly where he goes, "Anyone who's seen my dick and met my parents has to die." It's exactly that except for Bail it's "Anyone who has seen me cry and made me plead has to die."
> 
> Psychology does think smell is the sense most closely linked to memory. Believe it or not, but this is going to be huge in this story. (And has been already!)
> 
> Ok if you are versed in the most OBSCURE of Old EU knowledge then you have already known, since Chapter 5, where this story is going. (if you aren't... Don't try and look it up!!! We will get there!!)


	24. Jailbreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “For Ben.”

Breaking the Resistance’s number one most wanted out of the secret underground prison of the former Imperial Palace is not an easy task.

Though Rey would like nothing more than to smash open the glass window separating her from Bail, drag him out into the hallway with her, and pull him to the _Millennium Falcon,_ she knows she needs to think about it. She needs to strategize.

Bail is of the camp that it doesn’t matter, she should break him out now, and they’ll use the Force.

“Once we’re out in the main hall, we’ll have the Force,” he snaps, pointing emphatically, glaring at her from behind the glass. “Then who’s going to stop us? The Jedi? They should be _helping_ us. Don’t they want their Master back?”

Bail doesn’t know what it is Rey thinks can be found in the Maw that can return Ben to them. He hasn’t asked for more details; her enthusiasm, wide eyes, and surety is enough for him. For now, that is. Rey knows he’s going to demand a more coherent explanation once they have a moment to talk, preferably when they’re in the air. In the meantime, he’ll trust her.

It’s not like he has anything to lose.

But Rey shakes her head, thinking of everything Ben has spoken of in the last five years when it comes to the Jedi, and what they mean.

“We can’t let anyone see me freeing you,” Rey murmurs. “The Jedi mean too much to the Resistance, to the galaxy. If I freed you, and someone saw… That would besmirch our reputation for generations to come. I can’t afford that.”

Bail scowls. “For fuck’s sake, Rey--”

“Ben worked _so hard_ to maintain the image of the Jedi,” Rey snaps, glaring at Bail now. “As peacekeepers, but warriors, as dispensers of justice, but followers of an ancient religion. The Jedi have always been mythologized by the bulk of the galaxy, and Ben was determined to make them _real_ again. As more than legends, but as… As people. He wanted the galaxy to put their faith in people, and not… Not saviors.”

She sounds, she realizes, like Luke, monologuing about what the Jedi are versus what they are presented as.

Rey is torn between laughter and relief.

She turns her head, focusing on Bail.

“We’ll get to the Maw,” Rey says, firmly. “But we won’t rip up Ben’s legacy on our way.”

Bail groans, burying his face in his hands.

“You are _such_ a fucking Jedi,” he mutters.

Rey grins, the first time she’s done so since Ben’s death. “Yes, Bail. I am.”

* * *

It’s late in the day, nearing the time of twilight. This will aid Rey in her quest to sneak Bail Organa-Solo, formerly Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, out from under the eye of the entire Resistance High Command. The night sky is busier than it had been the day before, more transports shooting through the dusk, bound for other ports on the planet. The atmosphere above glitters with a hundred other ships, entering and exiting Coruscant airspace.

Inside the Palace of the Republic, operations have switched to a night mode.

Rey is pretty sure everyone’s sense of time has been scuttled by the battle and its immediate aftermath. The kitchen is shockingly busy, soldiers filtering in, grabbing rations and water bottles. Rey joins the throng, feeling guilty and pleased when no one questions her about grabbing two portions of everything available. She is not sure if it’s due to a Jedi thing, or due to her… recent loss.

Leia had a point about Galactic Basic. There is no word for Leia’s loss, just as there is no word for Rey’s.

What is the word for the woman who loses her betrothed?

 _Sad,_ Rey thinks, automatically. It’s not wrong.

Rations in hand, Rey hurries back outside to the _Millennium Falcon._ It’s still empty, no sign of Chewie nor Lando, though Rey isn’t sure her luck on this front will hold for much longer. Both men will look for a place to sleep before too long, and the _Falcon’s_ facilities are likely better than anything in the Palace, which will be crowded.

If she’s actually going to break Bail out… She’ll need to do it soon, and fast.

 _Think, think,_ Rey tells herself.

She could reach out to Jannah and Finn… She thinks they would help, or at least try to understand Rey’s thought process in going to the Maw, to search for a space station that may or may not actually exist. But they’re miles away at the Opera House, maybe even sleeping, as evidenced by the fact Finn hasn’t messaged Rey back yet.

She’s sure Chewie and Lando wouldn’t be keen to help. More than anything, they’d probably consider her plan a feebly veiled cry for help, try to convince her she isn’t thinking straight with her grief.

They might not be wrong.

Poe is definitely a non-starter. Any operation that involves removing Bail from Resistance custody would be axed by Poe immediately. And Leia… While Rey thinks Leia might be sympathetic, there’s no way the Commander-in-Chief of the Resistance, the de facto head of the burgeoning Republic, could allow the release of the First Order’s Supreme Leader.

Besides, she needs someone who might have access to blueprints of the Palace, who could help create either a diversion or a hidden path from the prison to the surface--

Rey stills, there on the sidewalk.

_Of course._

Rey breaks into a sprint, bypassing the entrance of the Palace she’d been going in and out of all day. She runs alongside the tall white wall that separates the Palace’s grounds from the streets of Coruscant, her boots hitting the stones loudly as she runs. Her thighs nearly get tangled up in the hem of her shirt, and it is only then that Rey remembers she’s still wearing her sleep pants and Ben’s shirt; she’d been too eager to get to Bail earlier to change.

The Resistance Navy has been set down to the side of the Palace, miles of x-wings, a-wings, y-wings, cruisers, transports, shuttles, corvettes, and a dozen other makes and models. The sky is washed in turquoise and teals, and Rey’s steps are lit largely by the streetlamps that line her path, emitting a hazy, fluorescent light.

She reaches what looks to be the main checkpoint.

“Hi,” Rey says, panting a little. The soldiers gathered stare at her, taking in her rapid breaths and slightly sweaty forehead. Rey wipes her face with her sleeve. “Is Rose Tico here?”

“She’s under the belly of an HH-87 Starhopper,” replies one attendant, a sergeant, going by the rank on his uniform. “Her last model for the night. Shall I page her for you?”

“Yes,” Rey says. “Please tell her it’s Rey. And ask her to hurry.”

“Yes, Master.”

Rey is not carrying her lightsaber, as she’s dressed in sleep clothes. Her face, it seems, is widely known among the Resistance at large.

The attendant types out a command on a radio, and it’s only minutes before Rose appears, anxious and wide-eyed, likely anticipating bad news from Rey.

But Rey is distracted, upon seeing who is rolling up ahead of Rose.

“BB-8!” Rey exclaims, her haste and nervousness momentarily eclipsed by her joy at seeing her friend. She drops to her knees, and BB-8 happily careens into her legs, beeping all the while.

 _Rey!_ He cries. _Rey, I’ve been looking for you! Where have you been?_

“Sleeping, mostly,” Rey admits. “I’m so glad to see you. I knew Poe had made it through the battle, which meant you had too, of course, but still…”

BB-8 preens, gently butting his head against Rey’s knee.

 _I am sorry about Ben,_ BB-8 says, and Rey’s heart jolts a little in recognition. _He was nice. And he loved you a lot._

“He did,” Rey murmurs. “I loved him, too.”

“Rey,” Rose says, skidding to a halt in front of her. “Rey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing bad,” Rey says, hurriedly, jumping up straight. She’s uncomfortably aware that all the soldiers in the vicinity are staring, listening raptly. “Follow me, please.”

Because she’s a good friend, Rose does, not asking questions. BB-8 tags along, his gears moving him easily over the smooth Coruscanti pavement. Rey can feel Rose’s bewilderment and anxiety slinking along with them. But she waits patiently, and Rey waits until they are alone on the sidewalk, and only then does she turn around, to face the woman and droid trailing her.

“I need a favor,” Rey says, urgently. “And BB-8, if you’re in on this; you have to _swear_ you won’t tell Poe. Not until I’m gone.”

 _“Gone?”_ Rose repeats, aghast, while BB-8 trills an alarm. “Where are you going?”

“The Maw,” Rey says, and this does nothing to ease Rose’s concern nor BB-8’s surprise. “And I won’t be gone forever, or long, hopefully. But I need a favor first. Rose? BB-8?”

“Yes, of course I’ll help you,” Rose says.

Rey looks down at the droid. He’s twitching in place, weighing his loyalty to Poe against his loyalty to Rey.

“Please,” Rey pleads. “Please, BB-8. I helped you get somewhere once, can you do that for me?”

It’s a bit of a low blow, probably, to bring up their flight from Jakku now, especially when it means BB-8 has to shirk his loyalty to his owner. BB-8 likely knows this, but Rey has never asked him for anything before, and so he issues a droid’s approximation of a sigh, and shuffles a nod.

“Thank you,” Rey breathes. “Okay. I need to get Bail out of the Palace.”

 _“What?”_ Rose exclaims. BB-8’s loud _zip_ echoes her.

“I know, I know,” Rey says, glancing around, but they are still alone. “Look, it’s… It’s complicated. But I have some lore, some Force lore, that indicates there might be something in the Maw that can bring Ben back. And I have to _try,_ okay? I have to try.”

_“Ben made a good effort,” Leia muses, and Rey’s heart thuds in her chest at the soft way Leia says his name. “But there was no preparing. Not for you, and not for me. And I think he knew that, he just--”_

_“Needed to try, anyway.”_

“Why do you need… Bail, though?” Rose asks, and Rey knows it goes against her instincts to call him by his birth name and not Kylo Ren.

“I need a pilot who’s traversed the Maw before.”

Rose looks grudgingly impressed. “And he has? Huh.”

“And he’s got nothing to lose, and everything to gain,” Rey continues. “He’s not doing any of this for me, he’ll be doing it for Ben. Because Ben would do the same for either of us.”

“This sounds dangerous!”

“I mean… Probably,” Rey allows. “But I have to try. _Please,_ Rose.”

They look at each other, the taller Jedi and the shorter mechanic. Rey sees a world of fear and grief in Rose’s dark eyes, and imagines Rose sees something similar in hers. But Rose has lost, and mourned. She’s lost her sister, her parents, her civilization. She understands the desire to do whatever you can to recover any part of that.

She understands, better than most, how important it is to try.

How powerful the simple act of perseverance can be.

Rose nods, straightening up.

“Okay,” she murmurs. “Okay.”

Rey looks down.

BB-8 whirs, _I don’t like this._

“You don’t have to,” Rey says. “You just need to help me. Please.”

BB-8 nods.

Rose plants her hands on her hips. “What do you need?”

* * *

It does not take long for Rose to break into the boiler room of the Palace, where the ancient blueprints of the Palace are kept. Rey hovers outside the door, keeping an eye out, listening to the low murmurs of Rose and BB-8 talking in the room behind her, digging through cabinets and storage bins. Both woman and droid emerge after about five minutes. Rose has the distinct appearance of someone carrying a roll of blueprints down the front of her shirt, so Rey hurriedly hustles her and BB-8 into a maintenance closet.

“Okay,” Rose breathes, unfurling the blueprints. For a moment, it’s quiet, the two women poring over the documents.

“The prison isn’t on here,” Rey says.

The blueprints end with the basement; Rey knows for a fact the prison is under it.

“It must have been a renovation they kept off the books,” Rose says, frowning. “Makes sense. The evil Emperor’s secret prison.”

 _A place to imprison Force users without anyone knowing,_ Rey thinks, and shudders at the thought.

“About where is it?” Rose asks, handing Rey a pencil. “Outline it for me, I haven’t been down there.”

Rey does so, creating a crude illustration of the shape and layout of the prison. BB-8 wheels up to her, staring at Rey’s hunched back as she draws. The floor is cold under Rey’s knees, her thin sleep pants.

When she’s done, she straightens. The three of them look at her drawing.

Rose taps her pencil under her chin. “BB-8, do you have access to a grid of the sewer lines of Coruscant? More specifically, any sewer or gas lines under the Palace. We’ll have to compare the two, see where the overlap is.”

 _Good thing Poe already had me upload everything I could about the Senate District,_ BB-8 grumbles. A moment later, holographic blue fills the room, a clunky three-dimensional look at the plumbing system under their feet.

Rey gets to her feet, holding up the blueprints. She carefully fits them in, creating a composite map.

“How big do you think the, uh… Force field is, exactly?” Rose asks.

“I don’t know how far down it goes,” Rey answers. “But I still could access the Force outside the cells, in the room where the guards are stationed. I think it’s in the walls.”

“It must be some kind of metal, then. Added in when the prison was built.”

Rey nods. It makes sense.

“Might be impervious to a lightsaber then,” Rey says, thoughtfully.

“So you’ll need a grenade,” Rose says. “Or two.”

“And definitely a diversion to mask the sound and feeling of an explosion under the floor,” Rey murmurs. She looks at BB-8. “Feel like getting up to no good?”

If a droid could roll its eyes, Rey knows BB-8 would be doing that to her now. _Always._

* * *

Rey and Rose’s plan to break into the secret underground prison of the Palace of the Republic would never have worked during the days of the Empire. For one; they likely would never have known of its existence. Two; Coruscant would have been crawling with stormtroopers and Imperial officers. Three; the sewers would have been a _lot_ fuller during the Imperial Era, and walking through them would probably have been physically impossible.

Rey and Rose had opened the manhole cover of the sewer half a mile from the Palace and immediately gagged on the atrocious odor within.

“Okay, well, no thanks,” Rose says, shaking her head. “You’re on your own for this part, babe.”

This leads to the fourth reason Rey and Rose’s plan would never have worked back in the day: There is no way they ever would have gotten so close to the Palace without masquerading as Imperial soldiers themselves. 

Stormtrooper armor litters the streets of Coruscant, shucked off carelessly by stormtroopers in the heat of battle, who’d eagerly shed the uniforms in the name of freedom. It is comically easy for Rose and Rey to scavenge up the armor, gathering chest plate, leg plates, arm plates, and helmet. Rey pulls the armor on mechanically, eager to protect her body and clothes from whatever awaits her below.

“You sure the helmet will help?” Rose asks, helping Rey fix it over her head. “Because the _Falcon’s_ breath masks should work--”

“Finn told me stormtrooper helmets filter gases,” Rey says. “It should subdue the smell. A breath mask will make it easier to breathe, but the smell won’t go away completely.”

She does take one; for Bail.

Rose fixes a camera lens to the front of Rey’s helmet, and then gives her a small comlink. They each have one, and BB-8 has the third.

“This is an absurd plan,” Rose grumbles. “This is insane.”

“It’ll work.”

“Oh, yeah, I think it will,” Rose agrees. “I’m just saying. If you’d told me two days ago, I’d be helping you spring the Supreme Leader of the First Order out of jail, I would have laughed for _years.”_

Rey grimaces. Rose can’t see her from behind the helmet, but she seems to understand anyway. She pats Rey on the shoulder.

Rey takes her last gulp of comparatively clean Coruscant air, and hops into the sewer.

The sewer is dark. Rey takes up her glowrod, switching it on. Rats and other small rodents dart away from her as she walks, scaling up the slimy sides of the pipe with startling ease. Everything is damp and nauseating, and Rey focuses on putting one foot in front of the other.

 _“That looks disgusting,”_ Rose says through the comlink, watching Rey’s progress through the camera affixed to her helmet.

“Wish you were here,” Rey replies, dryly, and Rose laughs. “How much farther?”

“Twenty yards and then take a right.”

With Rose’s clear and concise guidance, Rey navigates the deplorable sewers of Coruscant. She sees faded writing on the walls every now and then, names and numbers of the streets above her. Occasionally, all the pipes tremble as a large transport rumbles above ground, and Rey has to rely on the Force to keep her upright, determined to not fall into the questionable muck under her. She starts to sweat under her helmet, the gross humidity seeping through the armor.

“Rose,” Rey grumbles.

“You’re nearly there,” Rose replies. “Fifteen yards, and then--”

Overhead: PALACE.

Rey retrieves her lightsaber from her belt, and switches one of the green beams on.

The plasma cuts through the pipe easily, the rusted metal no match for its power. Rey heaves herself up through the opening, wincing a little at the filth that catches on the armor.

She’s come a long way from her days as a desert rat.

Rey hurries along this new path, Rose’s voice in her ear.

“Okay, going by your drawing… You should be right under the cells.”

Rey slows, reaching for the explosive charges at her belt. She sticks them to the ceiling, judging the best location by the support beams around her, thinking of how buildings are laid out, how weight is balanced, how the secret builders of the prison above her must have planned.

She runs a safe distance away before lifting her arm, and speaking into her comlink.

“BB-8, I’m ready,” she says, and BB-8 beeps a confirmation. “Three, two, one--”

Rey presses the detonator.

_BOOM._

The pipes tremble, and Rey is nearly knocked from the ledge she’s balanced on. Dust and spiders spill from the ceilings, and rodents squeak in fear and shock further away. Water and other waste sloshes against the walls.

But it was not the only explosion. Another one, one even stronger, has also shaken the sewer, its epicenter about a hundred yards north, further into the Palace.

“Well, I think that’s our diversion,” Rose comments, sounding deeply amused. “Go, Rey!”

Rey doesn’t need telling twice. 

She races back to the newly blown hole overhead, turning her head up. Through a cloud of smoke, she can see hazy, flickering light: the prison lights.

 _Perfect,_ she thinks, and begins to climb.

The climb is blessedly short. In the cement floors, Rey catches a glimpse of some mysterious black metal that makes her stomach roll; she knows, without a doubt or knowing what it _is_ exactly, that it’s responsible for nullifying the Force in this area. She isn’t interested in investigating it further. Its powers have been shattered along with the floor.

She slithers out the top to the sound of breaking glass, and jumps to her feet.

Bail stands in the hallway of the prison. Glass shards surround him, the window separating his cell from the prison’s main hallway broken. He turns, frowning at the sight of the stormtrooper who’s just emerged from the underground.

“I’m here to rescue you,” Rey says, deadpan. 

His frown deepens, and it hits Rey that he can’t recognize her with the stormtrooper armor on, and she can’t say her name because there are microphones that are listening, and while it will probably be easy to figure out it was she who freed him, Rey would like to minimize that damage.

So she does the one thing she can think to share her identity while shielding her real voice and face from the Resistance.

She dives into the Force.

And the Force… holds her close.

She had feared it would feel hugely different. Rey has felt the Force her whole life, but it wasn’t until she met Ben that she understood this. Upon his death, she had feared her connection with it would be changed. He had been such a prominent warmth in it for Rey, for so long. 

But the Force feels the same. Warm, and soft, and generous. And so familiar, as familiar to Rey as her own reflection. Everything feels strangely comforting, softly familiar, including Bail, the dark thing in the room. 

Rey breathes the current of the Force in, her lungs expanding. 

Bail’s eyes widen in recognition, picking up her Force signature easily enough.

She gestures to the floor. “The sewer. Let’s go.”

She tosses the breath mask to him, and he takes it, pulling it over his greasy hair. She hops back down, letting the Force ease her landing. A moment later, Bail joins her. He’s taller than her, and has to bend a little to prevent his head from touching the dirty ceiling.

“Kriff, that _smell,”_ he grunts, covering his breath mask with his hand reflexively.

“Now you understand the uniform,” Rey replies. “Or part of my reason for it, anyway. Thanks for not saying my name out loud back there.”

“I’m not quite that stupid,” Bail mutters. “Though you are a bit taller than the average stormtrooper. Seriously though, Rey; the _smell.”_

“You are more than welcome to crawl back up to your cell, Supreme Leader.”

He doesn’t complain again. Instead, he follows her through the sewer, running hunched over. She gives him her glowrod to help him see, while she carries her lightsaber, the emerald beam illuminating their path, coupled by Rose’s directions in her ear, as they go back the way they came.

“How’d you break the glass, anyway?” Rey asks.

“Force Wave,” Bail grunts. His breaths are short and stuttered; he’s avoiding breathing in through his nose as much as possible. “You broke whatever was causing the Force nullification field when you blew out the floor.” He pauses, and adds, “It won’t be long before they know someone broke me out.”

“I know,” Rey murmurs.

“I hope you have an alibi.”

“It’ll be fine,” Rey replies, but files the warning away anyway. It wouldn’t hurt.

The trip back to Rose is shorter than the trip to the prison. Rey clambers out first, emerging into the dark night, the light pollution of Coruscant besmirching what would likely otherwise be a beautiful starry night. Bail hurries after her, ripping the breath mask off his face to inhale the open air, as Rey pulls her helmet off. Together, the two of them shove the manhole cover back in place.

Rose watches them, eyebrow raised.

“Huh,” she says, looking Bail up and down. “I mean. I knew you and Ben were identical. But holy _shit.”_

“I’m the handsome one,” Bail replies. He looks surprised as soon as he says it; the words likely came to him reflexively, a muscle memory, something he and Ben would say whenever someone commented on their identicalness. 

There is no Ben here to refute his statement with something similarly sassy.

Rose stares. Rey clears her throat.

“We should hurry,” she says.

Bail and Rose help her take the stormtrooper armor off, leaving it abandoned in the street as they’d found it. The three of them break into a run, ironically running _back_ to the Palace Rey has just freed Bail from. 

But that’s just where the _Millennium Falcon_ waits.

* * *

The plan has gone perfectly, smoothly, no hiccups anywhere. The blueprints were stolen, consulted with, and returned. Rey has traversed the sewer system with aplomb. Rose has kept a careful and guideful eye out. BB-8 has orchestrated a properly diverting diversion. And Bail is outside the Palace.

It stands to reason, then, that a snag pops up just before they’re on their way to freedom.

Of all the snags, Rey hadn’t expected any of them to come in the form of Leia Organa.

Leia looks tiny, as always, standing in front of the open entry ramp of the _Falcon,_ her arms crossed over her chest. She’s dressed in a heavy gray dress, a dark blue cardigan over it that falls past her waist. Her hair is tied back in a braid Rey knows, that Rey wears in her own hair: the Alderaanian mourning braid.

She smirks in the dark. “Good evening.”

A lump swells in Rey’s throat. She feels Rose touch her arm, questioning, her gaze flicking from Leia to Rey and back.

Leia nods at her, and jerks her head to the side.

Rose squeezes Rey’s wrist, and disappears into the night.

Leia, Bail, and Rey face each other. Leia steps forward.

“Considering I have not yet been notified that the Supreme Leader of the First Order has escaped from our previously thought to be impenetrable jail under the Palace,” Leia muses, “Your escape plan was very good. Unfortunately, you failed to consider that his mother might sense his Force signature leaving the building.”

It is such a painfully obvious fact Rey neglected to consider. Judging by Bail’s expression, he also forgot.

“Leia,” Rey whispers. “I--”

“I don’t want to know.”

Rey frowns. “You… What?”

Leia walks forward, to stand in front of Rey and Bail. Bail’s face is stony and impassive, that Kylo Ren mask in place. But every muscle in his body looks tense, his soiled clothes clenching with it. Yet he remains still, like a prey animal that hopes freezing in place will shield it from the predator that is so near.

“The less I know, the better,” Leia says. “I’d rather not know… details. I trust you, Rey, which is why I did not raise the alarm when I felt Bail leave the prison, as I felt you were with him. I can only assume you need his help for something. And I think I can safely assume, from what I know about my son… That Bail has only agreed to help you because it has to do with Ben.”

Bail shivers. Leia looks at him, her brown eyes dark in the dim light.

“Yes,” Rey murmurs, since Bail seems to have been struck mute. “I have an idea. To bring Ben back. And I need Bail’s help.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know,” Rey whispers. “It’ll take us a couple days to… get there.”

“I hope you’ll inform someone of your destination, so a search party can be dispatched if the need arises.”

“I will,” Rey promises. Once they have coordinates, she can send a transmission.

Leia stands in front of her. Rey has to tip her gaze down, to look into Leia’s eyes. The older woman reaches forward, gently plucking the hem of the overlong shirt on Rey; Rey wonders if she recognizes it as Ben’s.

“Please be safe,” Leia whispers, and pulls Rey in for a hug. Rey returns her embrace tightly, pressing her nose into Leia’s shoulder, smelling lilac and stardust, and something subtler that reminds her of Ben.

Rey nods. “I will. I’ll bring your son home to you, Leia. I promise.”

“You always do,” Leia says, warmly. Her eyes flicker to Bail, and she adds, “In some way or another.”

Rey returned Ben to Leia from Starkiller Base. And now, she has returned Bail to Leia from the First Order itself.

Leia turns, looking up at Bail, craning her neck to do so. In the darkness, Bail’s pale face, still heavily bruised, sticks out, a moon in the midnight sky. 

Bail has always been the moon to Ben’s sun.

Leia stretches her hand up, and presses her palm to Bail’s cheek. He shudders, his hand lifting, and Rey tenses, preparing to intervene; but instead, he only covers Leia’s hand with his own, holding her hand to his face.

“Be brave, Bail,” Leia murmurs. “And be gentle with yourself. No matter what happens; know how proud I am of you, for your effort now.”

A war flashes in Bail’s dark eyes. He trembles.

“Mom,” he whispers, something so forlorn, so broken, that Rey has to look away.

“My angry boy,” Leia says, but she does not say it to hurt, or to punish; she says it with motherly affection. “I know I failed you, in one way or another. I hope you know how terribly sorry I am. I hope you know how grateful I am that we have this time together now. I hope… I hope you believe me when I tell you that I love you very much, Bail.”

Rey stares down at the stone under her feet, as Bail hiccups a noise like he’s just been shot.

“Ssh,” Leia murmurs. “Sweetheart. We’ll be okay. You, Ben, and I… We’ll figure it out. You will always have a place with us.” She pauses, and adds, “Well, and with Rey, too.”

Rey looks up. Leia smirks at her. Bail looks dazed.

Leia steps into Bail, wrapping her arms around his waist. He leans down, pressing his nose into her hair, clinging to her. Holding her like Ben does.

Leia is the first to let go.

“You’d better go,” she says, wiping her eyes. “It’s only a matter of time before they find out you aren’t in your cell. May the Force be with you both.”

“Thanks, Leia,” Rey says. Leia squeezes her hand once, tightly, before letting go. Rey scampers up the entry ramp. 

Bail is slower to follow, but still; he does.

* * *

While Bail hits the button to close the ramp of the _Millennium Falcon,_ Rey races to the bunk room. She grabs the notebook and _Ways of the Cosmic Force,_ is studying the two beds on the floor and wondering if she should put them back in their bunks before Bail can see them, when he screams her name.

“Bail? Bail?” Rey asks, sprinting out of the room. She can hear an odd sputtering noise, followed by the unmistakable sound of a Wookiee’s roar.

_“... the hell do you think you’re going, you little shit!? How’d you get out of your prison--”_

Rey steps into the cockpit to find Bail, slammed against the wall, feet dangling from the floor. Chewie stands in front of him, the Wookiee’s hands tight around Bail’s throat, roaring fiercely into this face. Above their heads, a porg flies in frantic circles, its _keroos_ adding to the chaos.

“Chewie,” Rey cries.

_“... drag you back myself if I have to--”_

“Chewie!” Rey yells, abandoning the text and notebook to grab Chewie’s arm. She’s painfully aware of how similar Bail and Chewie’s positions are to hers and Bail’s when he strangled her in the kitchen on Ajan Kloss, and part of her doesn’t want to get too close. But she needs Bail alive and mostly healthy to get her through the Maw. “Chewie, stop! He’s with me!”

Chewie turns his head, staring at her, brown eyes wide.

 _“You broke him out?”_ Chewie demands, aghast.

“I need him,” Rey says. Bail continues to splutter inelegantly. “I think I’ve found a way to bring Ben back.”

Chewie issues a mournful, untranslatable wail.

“Yes,” Rey says. “Can you let Bail down, please?”

Slowly, like it is hurting him to do so, Chewie lets go. Bail drops to the floor. His last ditch effort to grab the headrest of the passenger’s seat is the only thing that prevents his knees from buckling. He gasps, massaging his neck gingerly.

“Kriff,” he grunts. “Never been on the receiving end of a Wookiee chokehold before.”

 _“Yes, because you would normally not survive it,”_ Chewie snaps, looking at Rey. _“What’s going on here?”_

“We need to take off,” Rey says, squeezing past man and Wookiee to clamber into the pilot’s seat. The porg has landed, settling itself on top of the velocity indicator. “The Resistance might realize Bail’s gone any moment, and we need to not be here when they do.”

Rey starts up the _Falcon’s_ engines, the freighter roaring to life under her. She initiates the takeoff sequence, bypassing the nav computer, determined to at least get them in the air and out of Coruscant airspace before doing anything else. Slowly, she becomes aware that Chewie has not moved, and she turns around.

He’s staring at her, bewildered and hurt.

“Chewie,” Rey whispers. “You can leave if you’d like, but Bail is staying here. I think he and I can bring Ben back. You know that nothing else would’ve made me free him, right?”

 _“I know,”_ Chewie grumbles.

“Please,” Rey implores. “Trust me.”

They stare at each other. Rey sees a universe of pain and grief in Chewie’s dark eyes. While the loss of Han was devastating, Han had been an old man. Ben was thirty; in Wookiee years, he was still a child. And there was no one Chewie wanted to protect more than Han and Leia’s baby.

 _“For Ben,”_ Chewie says.

Rey nods. “For Ben.”

Grumbling, Chewie settles in his usual chair, the co-pilot’s. Bail sits in the seat behind Rey, eyes flickering warily from Chewie to the porg and back. Chewie, for his part, studiously avoids Bail’s gaze, or looking at Bail’s reflection in the transparisteel viewport.

The _Falcon_ lifts off, soaring through the crowded skies of Coruscant. Night has fully fallen, and they slip through the smog, dip into the clouds, and eventually break into the atmosphere. Debris and clutter from the battle still litters the space above Coruscant, and for a moment, it’s silent in the _Falcon,_ as the three occupants take it in. Bits of ships float past, metal marred by explosions and blasts, while pieces of droids hover in place. There are no corpses; Rey can only assume bodies are moved as soon as a battle is over. She is immensely grateful for this.

 _“So?"_ Chewie asks, looking at Rey expectantly. _“Where to?”_

Rey reaches back, grabbing Ben’s notebook. Chewie and Bail lean forward to look as Rey flips through the pages, stopping at the entries Ben wrote after their visit to Lothal. She holds the notebook out, open to the page with Ben’s drawing of the Maw, the gold-colored disc inside it.

“The Maw,” Rey says. She taps the gold disc. “We need to visit this space station.”

“A space station,” Bail echoes, flatly.

 _“Inside the Maw?”_ Chewie asks, incredulously.

Rey looks at them both. “Yes.”

Chewie and Bail are very careful to not look at each other. She can see them both puzzling through it, this vague plan of Rey’s, what might lie ahead.

And then Bail reaches forward, and takes the notebook from Rey’s hands, looking down at the drawing with a thoughtful frown.

And then Chewie sighs, and types in _the Maw Cluster_ as the destination in the nav computer, and a route flickers onto the screen.

Rey smiles.

She punches the hyperdrive throttle, and they speed off into the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben is very honest, and wears his heart on his sleeve, and is never afraid to express emotion. Remember that Bail is his mirror; his opposite.
> 
> Rose is a good friend. She loves Rey, but she also loves Ben a lot; she met him first, escaped Canto Bight with him, fought on Snoke's dreadnought at his side. Rose was the one person Ben talked to while preparing to propose to Rey. Ben once said "I would die on a battlefield for Rose Tico," and that feeling is mutual. They are BFFs.
> 
> This is the last kind of... filler chapter? I mean this wasn't even filler, it was all very necessary... But the rest of the story is A Lot. Buckle in.


	25. Into The Maw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No natural cluster behaves like this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My descriptions of the Maw are more consistent with it as it appeared in the Old EU, and NOT as it appeared in SOLO. 
> 
> Mood music for the last third of this chapter: ["Interstellar - Main Theme (Piano Version)" by Patrik Pietschmann.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y33h81phKU)

“First things first,” Rey declares, as the blue lines of hyperspeed whip past the window of the _Millennium Falcon._ “Bail, go clean up in the fresher. You smell like the sewer.”

 _“I thought that was his natural scent,”_ Chewie comments.

“Switch off,” Bail mutters, scowling. But he gets to his feet, and leaves the cockpit, marching towards the fresher.

Chewie eyes Rey.

 _“What are you doing, Rey_ -jow?”

Rey hugs the text to her chest. “I’m trying, Chewie. Look, I… I know it might be a wild bantha chase, with nothing at the end, but… I have to _try._ Ben would try for me, we both know that. And for you.”

 _“And Bail?”_ Chewie asks. _“Where does he fit into this?”_

“He wants to bring Ben back,” Rey murmurs. “I don’t know exactly what happened, with… With them, but it’s obvious he feels awful. He’s only in this to save Ben. He doesn’t care about you or me. And I can live with that.”

Tessalie chirps from her perch on the subspace radio. Chewie pets her downy feathers.

 _“Is he done trying to strangle you, then?”_ he asks.

Rey bites her lip. “I’m pretty sure that was only the Darkstaff, Chewie. He’s not… Aside from Starkiller Base, Bail’s never actively tried to kill me. And he won’t now. Not since we both want the same thing.”

Chewie still looks dubious, as dubious as a Wookiee can with all that fur.

But he eventually nods, giving a deep sigh.

 _“Fine,”_ he says. _“But I want nothing to do with him.”_

* * *

Rey returns to the bunk room.

She strips the sheets off the beds, returning the mattresses to their bunks. There is something so small and somber in this movement, the metaphor a bit too obvious in separating two entities that had once been so close. She pauses over the assorted lightsabers in the room: Bail’s, Ben’s, and the spare. She’s sure Bail has been able to sense them, as he’s attuned to the crystal in his sword, as well as its twin in Ben’s. He has not asked her for his lightsaber yet, something she’s grateful for, as she doesn’t know how she’ll respond. He probably shouldn’t walk unarmed into whatever space station they’re headed to, but… 

Rey sighs, and sticks the lightsabers into her rucksack. They’ve got almost two days to fly to the other side of the galaxy to the Maw.

Instead, she goes about retrieving clothes for Bail out of Ben’s bag. He’d brought a change of clothes, anticipating at least one day spent on Coruscant following the battle, a black shirt and similarly dark trousers; clothes one might wear while in mourning. Ben had gone to Coruscant planning to kill his brother.

Rey brushes the Alderaan mourning braid at her neck.

“Are those for me?”

She just about jumps out of her skin, and there is a brief, horrific moment where Rey detaches from reality, and thinks Ben has returned, is standing in front of her again. But then she blinks, and takes in the scar that cleaves his face, running from his temple to his bare chest.

Bail raises an eyebrow, supremely unconcerned with his half-nakedness, holding a towel at his hip.

Rey scowls, and throws the clothes at him. “We’ve barely met ten times ever, and yet this is the _second_ time you’re half-naked in front of me.”

“Lucky you,” Bail drawls, and Rey really hates him.

She remembers Ben once describing Bail as an _ass,_ and has never agreed more. He’s like Leia and Han, she thinks, without the civility.

She twists away, glaring at the wall of the _Falcon,_ as Bail dresses behind her.

“Alright,” Bail says, and she turns back around.

Ben’s clothes fit him perfectly, of course, and the dark tones means he doesn’t look very strange at all, though she’s never seen him dressed so casually. She watches as he pulls his hair back, tying it up with a hairband he must have stolen from Rey’s stash in the fresher. He glances around as he does this, those calculating eyes taking in the room he’s been in so recently, when he and Ben first switched on the _Falcon._ She watches as his eyes still over the scratches on the wall, done in a child’s messy hand.

B.O.S. WAS HERE.

“I did that,” Bail says.

Rey frowns. Ben has never been able to remember who’d written the letters. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Bail says. He points to the marks under it, B.O.S. W, the identical phrase ended abruptly. “I did the first, and I dared Ben to copy me. Then we heard Threepio coming. I don’t think Han would have given a fuck about us defacing the _Falcon--_ Maker knows we couldn’t do worse--but Leia would have been pissy.”

 _Definitely,_ Rey thinks. _He is definitely his parents, minus civility._

“And Ben never wanted to get in trouble with any of them,” Bail finishes. “So he bailed.”

“He didn’t want to disappoint them,” Rey murmurs.

Bail snorts. “Yeah, I know. As if he could. Not with me being around, lowering any and all expectations.”

He crosses the room, sitting down on the bunk next to the letters. It hits Rey then, seeing this movement, how casually Bail claims this bunk, that Ben always claims the opposite one. Though they’ve rarely slept in the bunk room over the last five years, absconding to the Captain’s quarters instead, Ben has been known to casually leave his things on the left bunk. Rey had always just thought it a personal quirk, without realizing the true reason that is so obvious now: It’s because Bail always slept in the other one.

“Let me see,” Bail says, and it takes Rey a minute to realize he’s talking about Ben’s notebook in her arms.

She hands it to him. He flips it open to the page she’d marked, Ben’s notes on the mosaics of the Temple on Lothal.

Rey sits on the other bunk to wait as he reads.

Bail frowns, focusing on Ben’s handwriting. He runs a finger down the page, tapping a word or two, muttering to himself. Before too long, Rey has to look away, unable to bear the image, how reminiscent of Ben he is. They have the same _mannerisms._

Rey’s never gotten to see Bail in any kind of domestic space before.

It’s nearly as disorienting as forcing herself to acknowledge Ben is dead.

After ten or so minutes, Bail _hmms,_ and looks up.

“This is the wildest shit I’ve ever heard of,” he says, and Rey’s heart drops.

“None of it’s familiar?” she asks. “The dyad story? The mosaics, the space station?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Bail replies, closing the notebook with a brisk _snap._ “Where’s the text?”

They trade, Rey passing him _Ways of the Cosmic Force,_ the dyad myth already bookmarked.

Rey opens Ben’s notebook. Her eyes dart over his words, written in his beautiful handwriting. His drawing skills are remarkable as well, the location of the space station a clearly defined space in the Maw. Or so it looks to Rey; she’ll need to get Chewie and Bail and the nav computer to pore over it, to try and determine the physical spot in the Maw they need to find.

“Beyond shadows,” Bail mutters, and Rey looks up.

He twists the text, showing her the dyad myth. He taps the words circled in pen ink: _Bit Nitupta._

“That’s what Ben translated it as,” Rey says.

“It’s a very literal translation,” Bail says. “But I’ve never heard of the phrase, so who’s to say if he was wrong. Your space station is more interesting.”

He flips through the text, showing her the page Ben had shown her, with the gold colored disc, the word Ben had translated as _station_ circled.

“It’s not _my_ space station,” Rey says.

Bail shrugs. “No, it certainly is not. It’s probably not even functioning anymore, if it ever existed.”

“Not anymore?” Rey echoes.

“There haven’t been any Jedi to operate out of the station for over sixty years,” Bail says. “They would have seen the recall code during Order 66 and returned to the Temple on Coruscant. They were likely murdered then. Or, assuming they stayed at their post… they’re most likely all dead of natural causes.”

Rey frowns, picturing an empty station, floating aimlessly in space…

“Although,” Bail adds, “We should take into account how unbelievably _ancient_ this text is. Perhaps the station predates even the Old Jedi Order.”

“But then it’d be even more likely the station would be abandoned,” Rey points out, miserably.

“Good point.” He frowns down at the text. “Where did you get this, anyway?”

“Found it under a floorboard of a Jedi Explorations outpost on Ord Canfre.”

“Weird.”

Rey almost laughs. “Yeah, I know. We gave it to Ben for his birthday.”

“Ah.” Bail considers the text in his hand. “Well. Let’s hope that’s some auspicious timing.”

He closes the text, resting it on his lap, and rapping his knuckles over the cover.

“I know Ben isn’t much of a drinker,” Bail says. “But I know Chewie is. And Lando even more so. There’s gotta be some decent whiskey on this ship. How do you feel about getting drunk with your former nemesis, Rey?”

* * *

It’s a bad idea.

It is a _colossally_ bad idea. An idea so bad that Rey is surprised Ben’s Force ghost doesn’t pop up to tell them off for it. In retrospect, perhaps Bail had been hoping for that, hence the floating of the bad idea in the first place.

Lando’s cache of whiskey in the galley is carefully looked over by Bail. He scrutinizes each label carefully, taking note of the year the whiskey was crafted, holding the bottles up to the dim light to see the amber color within. Rey stands just outside the galley, holding two glasses in her hands, wondering what Bail is looking for.

Eventually, he settles on an unopened bottle of Tevraki; a favorite of Ben’s.

And his, apparently.

They go out to the dejarik table in the main hold. Rey can hear a few soft _keroos_ , and imagines Chewie is still awake, determined to stay alert as long as possible should Bail make a move to take the _Falcon._ She expects he’ll sleep in the cockpit for the entirety of the trip. Rey feels tremendously guilty over this, but at least it’ll prevent him and Bail from crossing paths.

She watches Bail light up a cigarette.

“Must you do that?” Rey asks, wrinkling her nose. Before he can answer, she adds, “Wait, where did you get that?”

Ben hasn’t smoked in years.

“In the loose floorboard under the far right cupboard in the bunk room,” Bail replies, exhaling a putrid cloud of smoke. “We used to hide the stuff we didn’t want Han and Leia to find under there. It’s like a fucking time capsule. There’s ebla beer, cigarettes, condoms…”

He looks at Rey, arching an eyebrow, stone faced. Rey glares back.

He sighs.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

“I don’t understand why you’re trying to be so mean,” Rey says, quietly.

“Habit,” Bail mumbles, staring at the lit cigarette in hand. “To be honest, I find you very interesting.”

“Me? Why?”

“Snoke wasn’t an idiot,” Bail says, abruptly, and Rey stares. “He was right about you being an anomaly in the Force. You’re very powerful, more so than most people. That automatically gets my attention. And then… Well. Ben barely looked twice at girls before you. As far as I know, that is. There was the six year gap where I still don’t know what he was doing… You’re interesting to me because I just don’t get it. No offense.”

Rey shrugs. She knows Bail is mostly right. For Ben, there was sporadic, casual sex during his six years of solitude; but it was never something he craved.

She won’t bother to take offense at Bail’s last comments. Because she actually does get it.

“I think you and Ben value different things,” Rey murmurs. “You value power, which is why I’m interesting to you. And Ben values goodness, which is why I’m… interesting to him.”

Bail smirks. “Hmm.” He stubs the cigarette out on the table carelessly. “Kriff. Ben’s such a cheapskate. This cigarette is terrible.”

“He’s fiscal--”

“He’s _cheap,”_ Bail interjects. “He’s set to inherit the entire fortune belonging to House Organa, including what remains of the royal treasury of Alderaan. He’s got no business being fiscal, _ever.”_

Rey has nothing to say to that. She watches as Bail opens the whiskey.

“What do we think,” Bail asks, pouring them each a generous glass. “A drinking game?”

“I think it’ll end quickly,” Rey says. “I don’t drink much.”

“Depends on the game,” Bail replies. He thinks about it, frowning down at his glass. He frowns a lot, Rey has noticed. “Here, I’ll go easy on you. Let’s play _Never have I ever.”_

Rey has played this before, with Ben, Jannah, Finn, Poe, and Rose, back on Ajan Kloss. The eclectic group has always made the game fun, and with the players being close friends, comfortable as well. Rey isn’t sure how Bail thinks he can go easy on her with this game now.

“You can go first,” Bail says.

“Um.” Rey thinks there are a lot of things Bail has done that she hasn’t. “Never have I ever… been shot.”

“Boring,” Bail replies, but takes a drink anyway. “Never have I ever been in love.”

Rey scowls. “Cheap.” She takes a drink. “Never have I ever flown a TIE.”

“Easy.” _Drink._ “Never have I ever lived on a desert planet.”

“Obvious.” _Drink._ “Never have I ever dressed all in black.”

“I look good in black,” Bail says, once he’s gulped down the whiskey. “And _really?_ Never?”

Rey shrugs. “No one on Jakku wore black. The sun would cause you to overheat in five minutes.”

“Mm. Never have I ever been an orphan.”

There’s a long pause, where Bail stares at Rey, openly daring her to say something, to comment on how Bail is half an orphan, and one of his own making. But then Rey remembers Leia’s quiet grief, the way she bemoaned not having a word to describe her status as the mother of a dead child. She holds her tongue.

Rey’s whiskey goes untouched.

“Interesting,” Bail murmurs. “You aren’t an orphan.”

“I might be,” Rey allows. “I don’t know for sure, either way. Seems disingenuous to drink.”

She looks at the amber liquid in her glass, aware that Bail is staring.

Rey sighs. “What happened during your fight with Ben, Bail? Why did you turn?”

She fully anticipates something snarky, something passive. A half-truth, at best. The two of them have created a tentative truce around a shared goal, and Rey is sure Bail has decided he doesn’t owe her anything beyond his compliance with that goal. But to her surprise, he starts to speak.

“Ben won,” he says, flatly. “I was unarmed, on my knees. He could have killed me easily. But he didn’t. I watched his face, and it was like… It was like he wasn’t looking at _me,_ exactly. But something else. Or a lot of things, I don’t know. Instead, he dropped the lightsabers, and he started to cry.”

Rey’s heart aches in her chest. She can picture it so easily.

“I’ve seen him cry before,” Bail murmurs, softer now. “But then, I just… Seeing him cry there, in that Temple… We’ve been apart so long that it’s allowed me to… separate him. To think of Ben, my brother, versus Ben, the Jedi Master. When he started crying, it really… I saw, so clearly, that it was only _him._ Just Ben. Ben, with his wretched goodness, his… his _Light,_ that ultimately killed him. Fucking ironic.”

“I don’t understand what happened,” Rey says. “How did he destroy the Darkstaff? How did he know?”

 _“Tave vora,”_ Bail says. Rey frowns, recognizing the phrase from the Sith text.

“What does it mean?”

Bail looks at her. “It means _the sun,_ Rey.”

He might as well have slapped her.

Rey places her hands face down on the dejarik table. Otherwise, she thinks she’s liable to smash the glass in front of her. To tear the seat under her apart. To rip a light out of the ceiling.

How many times has she called Ben her sun? How many times has she heard someone else? How many times has she likened his presence in the Force to sunlight? To the best parts of light itself?

“He’s always been the sun,” Rey whispers. Tears slide down her face.

_“The sun will keep you safe.”_

She must be drunker than she thinks, because she doesn’t realize she’s said the words out loud until Bail repeats them back to her.

“He told that to me,” Rey says. “On Jakku. When I was a child.”

Bail is frowning, his eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “That… isn’t possible.”

“I _know,_ but it happened,” Rey snaps. “Twenty years ago, I was dying in the Jakku wastelands, and Ben kissed my forehead, and made me that promise.”

Bail stares at her. Rey flushes.

“We took it to mean the Darkstaff was going to send him back in time,” she mutters.

“It needed a Force storm to create a wormhole to cause that,” Bail says. “And, uh. That didn’t happen. Obviously.”

“Obviously.” Rey pauses, and adds, “We thought you might have wanted the Darkstaff to time travel. When were you trying to go?”

Bail uncorks the whiskey, refilling their glasses. “Drink up, Rey. This isn’t gonna be pleasant for either of us.”

* * *

How tragic, the story of the Organa-Solo twins is.

Rey could laugh at the absurdity of it all. And she might laugh. She’s that drunk.

“You know,” Rey mumbles, her tongue a little chunky in her mouth, like it’s unexpectedly grown suddenly. “If the two of you had jus’... jus’... talked it ou’--”

“It’s complicated,” Bail drawls.

He’s reclining on the bench seat, one knee tucked up archly. His brown eyes are glassy.

Rey wonders what time it is.

Chewie and the porg are silent. She thinks he closed the cockpit door at some point.

“Not really,” Rey says. “Ben woulda listened to you… No matt’r what.”

But even as she says that, Rey knows it isn’t true. Because there _had_ been a chance for Ben to listen to Bail; when Rey left Ahch-To for the _Supremacy,_ in her bid to turn Bail to the Light Side. Ben could have come with her. He refused, citing his firm belief that his brother’s goodness had evaporated. Died with Han, she thinks, was the actual phrase he used.

“Aw,” Bail says, smirking a bit. “If only that were true, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Wha’?”

 _“Sweetheart,”_ Rey hisses.

“Sorry,” Bail mumbles, abashed. “I probably sound too much like him.”

Rey, who has always been too kind, says: “Ben never called me that.”

“Oh. Surprises me.”

“Why?”

Bail looks uncomfortable. “It’s, uh… Han called Leia that. Thought Ben might’ve copied him.”

Rey only saw a handful of moments between Han and Leia, and spent much of them in a daze, jarred by the revelation of Kylo Ren being Ben’s identical twin, and the trauma of watching Ben spirited away to certain doom. She doesn’t remember Han calling Leia that. What she mostly remembers is the tender way Han held her when she cried. How, watching them, Rey wished someone would hold her like that.

And then she had Ben, who did hold her like that.

“Probably why he _didn’t,”_ Rey comments. “He doesn--didn’t, like it when people compared us… Particularly me with Leia.”

“Wha’ do you mean?”

Rey clears her throat. The whiskey has lowered her voice, which helps. “I can sound like her.”

Bail laughs. The sound is so foreign, so startling, that Rey nearly knocks her glass over. He grins, shaking his head, and he looks so like Ben.

“Tha’ was really good!” he exclaims. “Ugh. Poor Ben. I told him you looked like Leia once.”

“When?”

His delighted expression slips. “Starkiller Base.”

“Ah.”

They look at each other. The lighting in the _Millennium Falcon_ is never good, is always a little temperamental, the light fixtures ancient and difficult to replace. In the poor lighting, Bail looks tired. Defeated, perhaps.

“Bail,” Rey whispers, gathering her wits about her. “I still don’t understand. How was leaving Ben your biggest regret? When did you decide it was? Why _now,_ why after five years? What was your ultimate plan with time travel, and the Darkstaff?”

Bail leans forward, and picks up his glass.

His dark eyes stare into hers.

“The only person who deserves my last confession is Ben,” he murmurs. “You and I have an understanding, Rey, but we aren’t friends. So I won’t be sharing my deepest secrets with you before I can share them with my twin.” He pauses. “Maybe I’ll tell you after.”

Rey scowls.

“Ben called you an _ass_ once,” she grumbles. “I see that he was right.”

“I’m the bad guy, sweetheart,” Bail drawls, ignoring her glare at the endearment. “Of course I’m an ass.”

* * *

They go to bed shortly after that. 

Bail follows Rey into the bunk room, moving automatically to his claimed bunk. He’s already barefoot, and so all he has to do is clamber under the thin blanket of the bunk. Like Ben, he’s far too large for it; his feet hang off the end.

Rey lies down on the bunk Ben normally claims. She falls asleep staring at Bail’s feet.

* * *

When Rey wakes up, she decides to check her messages.

She’s sure she has more than a few.

Sure enough: she’s got twenty-one.

The vast majority of them are from Finn, and the tone changes wildly in each. It starts with confusion, then horror, then anger, then concern, before spiralling into a hybrid of bemusement and alarm. Rey reads through Finn’s messages calmly, guilt coalescing in her over the anxiety she’s putting her best friend through.

Across the room, Bail sleeps, snoring away like he hasn’t slept in years.

Which, for all Rey knows; maybe he hasn’t.

The rest of the messages are from Jannah, Rose, Poe, and Leia. Jannah’s share many sentiments with Finn’s, though with a more level-headed tone. Rose’s are gleeful, the smugness and triumph in the successful jailbreak obvious across the galaxy, though Rose ends each of her messages with a plea of confirmation that Rey is still alive. Poe’s are much more serious, close to biting; his concern that Rey is acting in a state of single-minded, grief-fueled desperation has caused him to hold his punches. She’s sure he’d be saying a lot more, with a lot more colorful swear words, if the situation had been different. Then again, this situation wouldn’t even be happening in the first place.

Leia has left a single message. A reminder.

_Please transmit your location once you’ve made it… Wherever it is you’re going._

Fair, and straight to the point. Leia Organa.

Rey types up a response for Finn, Jannah, Rose, and Poe.

 _Hi all. I’m so sorry for the confusion, fear, and anxiety I’m putting you through. Please know that I am safe, on board the_ Millennium Falcon _with Bail and Chewie. Chewie’s inclusion in this group was a last minute decision. I don’t think he would have come, but he wants to keep me safe from Bail, even though I’ve told him repeatedly this isn’t necessary. Bail isn’t going to hurt me._

_I think I’ve found a way to bring Ben back. It’s a bit complicated, and definitely a “Force thing,” as Poe and Rose might put it. I have no idea if it will work. We might get to our destination and find absolutely nothing. But I have to hope._

_No matter what: I will come back._

_Finn, Jannah: I am so sorry to have left you like this. You both deserve to have a Master, more than ever, to grieve and heal with. Please know I wouldn’t do this if there was another way. But I have to try. Ben taught me how to try. I know he’d do the same if it was me, as he would with both of you, too. I would have brought you with me, but… This is the unknown. I don’t know what lies ahead. I can’t risk the entirety of the Jedi Order._

_Rose: I’m okay. Chewie is here too. And Tessalie._

_Poe: Please forgive me. I’ll bring Bail back, and accept the consequences of my actions._

_I’ll transmit my coordinates to Leia once we… “get there.” But to Leia only. I’m putting the decision to come after us in her hands. I know she’ll be smart about it, and will only make the call if it’s absolutely necessary. She won’t endanger any of you. This is my priority._

_We’ll talk soon. I send all my love._

_Rey._

* * *

Rey is in the main hold, polishing off her fourth ration bar, when Bail wanders in.

He looks disgruntled, and grubby, his hair flat on one side. He runs his hand through it, scratching his stomach idly with his other hand.

Rey nudges a cup of water to him, and he takes it with a grunt of thanks.

“You finish that,” she says. “Then you can have caf.”

“Rude,” Bail mutters, but acquiesces, downing half the glass in one go. He settles onto the bench seat, tipping his head up, to look at the _Falcon’s_ depraved ceiling. “Kriff, this ship is a piece of junk.”

“She’s got history,” Rey allows.

Once, she would have agreed with Bail. She has called the _Falcon_ “garbage” before. But that was then. This is now, five years later. Now, she knows what the ship has done, and what it has meant to so many. She knows that for Ben, it’s been the most consistent home he’s ever known. For Chewie, it’s been a sure flight. For Leia, it’s where she fell in love.

She wonders if Bail truly only thinks of it as a piece of junk, or if that’s simply his way of downplaying his feelings.

Bail places a text on the table, and Rey realizes it’s Ben’s notebook.

“Just looking,” he mutters, at Rey’s distrusting look. “I’m curious to see if he wrote down any of his thoughts about what was compelling the switch.”

 _Right._ Rey had nearly forgotten about that issue, with everything else going on.

“We never figured it out,” she says. “Last I heard, Ben thought there might be something to do with… Pleasure.”

“Pleasure,” Bail echoes.

“Yeah… You were eating a good meal, and then another time you were… having sex,” Rey says, maintaining eye contact, refusing to blush or anything else that might indicate discomfort. “And then you were massacring a village. And finding the Darkstaff. Ergo; pleasure.”

Bail considers this. “I mean… Sort of? But I wasn’t actually feeling pleasure. Not at those last two, I mean. I was feeling…”

He trails off.

Rey scowls. “More information classified for Ben only?”

Bail shrugs his shoulders in an exaggerated motion.

“You are the _worst,”_ Rey grumbles, rubbing her fingers against her temples.

“I’ve been called meaner things,” Bail comments. “So what was it Ben was doing during these times that gave him the idea it was _pleasure_ causing it?”

“That’s a little more… complicated,” Rey says. “He was sleeping. And then he was digging through bins in the _Falcon._ And then he was meditating with the Force. Cooking dinner. Repairing the _Falcon.”_

“Boring,” Bail mutters, but he looks thoughtful. “I guess that could be Ben’s idea of pleasure. But, to be honest, it also reminds me…”

He trails off.

Rey stares.

Bail has a pinched look on his face, like he’s smelled something so disgusting it actually offends him. Rey waits, anticipating another sarcastic, quippy comment. Probably a knock against the _Falcon,_ or her, specifically. But it doesn’t come. Bail only stares down at the top of the dejarik table.

“Bail--”

Her query is cut off, by seemingly every alarm in the _Falcon_ going off at once.

Rey and Bail are on their feet, and tearing into the cockpit in the next second. Bail carries Ben’s notebook under his arm.

Chewie is still in the co-pilot’s chair, and is staring down at the nav computer, which looks to be the culprit of the alarms. Above him, Tessalie has taken off, flying in short, agitated circles.

“Chewie,” Rey prompts, leaning over him.

 _“We’re coming up on the Maelstrom,”_ Chewie says. _“At about this time, we’d be turning the_ Falcon _a good forty-five degrees to get on the traditional Kessel Run. We’d go through the Maelstrom, but safely, by sticking to that trade route.”_

“But to get to the Maw?”

 _“We go_ through _the Maelstrom.”_

“Okay,” Rey says, sounding far more calm than she is. She turns around to where Bail is loitering in the doorway. “Take your seat.”

Bail sighs, but follows her direction, slipping into the pilot’s chair. Chewie glances over at him and scowls.

“Yeah, I know,” Bail mutters. “Unless you’d rather pilot? Have _you_ piloted a ship through the Maw before? Or have you only watched?”

“Bail,” Rey snaps. “Focus. Don’t be petty.”

She picks up Ben’s notebook, from where Bail had abandoned it on the seat behind Chewie. She tears out the page containing the drawing of the Maw, carefully fitting it into a gap in the control panel of the _Falcon,_ between Bail and Chewie. She points at the gold disc.

“This is what we’re looking for,” she says. “Hopefully the _Falcon_ will pick up on it on her proximity scanners.”

 _“I’ve never heard of a space station inside the Maw,”_ Chewie comments.

Bail does not say anything.

His eyes are forward, and focused, as he turns the control yoke, guiding the _Millennium Falcon_ out of the lit, beacon-littered route that leads to Kessel, into the spasming darkness that is the Akkadese Maelstrom.

* * *

The primary deity worshipped by the Teedo species of Jakku is called R’iia. The Teedos believe R’iia to be cruel and unforgiving. Their faith claims that R’iia herself is responsible for the perpetual drought and famine that defines Jakku, that it was her breath, whispered across the neverending orange sands, that destroyed all plant life. They say it was her breath that caused the Battle of Jakku, that created the Graveyard of Giants. They say the dust storms, the dry lightning, the thunder and winds marked by absolutely no rainfall, that wreak havoc on the desert planet are more of the same. They call these storms _X’us’R’iia._ Translated literally as, _The Breath of R’iia._

They say she did all this, is like this, as a punishment for their sins.

Rey has never shared their faith.

But the little girl found the stories fascinating. She pictured R’iia as a beautiful thing, desert wind personified. She pictured R’iia as having long, sand-colored hair, and eyes as pale and blue as the endless Jakku sky. Sometimes, when R’iia’s breath was calm and tranquil, Rey liked to think she was not picturing R’iia herself, but the mother that Rey could not remember. The mother Rey was waiting to return.

Rey knows now that her imagining R’iia so positively was her way of coping with the trauma and grief her abandonment caused. It was her way of living with it.

If anyone is R’iia, if anyone is the desert storm: that’s Rey.

The scavenger, the Jedi From the Wastelands, Rey of Nowhere. R’iia in human form.

The Teedos may tremble before her now.

But then Rey watches the Akkadese Maelstrom unfold before her eyes, and she thinks, _This. This is a real storm._

The Maelstrom is, more or less, trash. It’s interstellar gas, and carbonbergs, and ice chunks, and space debris. It is very old. It has shrouded Kessel from the rest of the galaxy for eternity, creating a physical barrier that has been very effective. Even the most seasoned pilots would never dare, in a million years, to traverse the Maelstrom outside the carefully marked beacons of the Kessel Run.

But none of those pilots were Han Solo.

And neither is his son.

Bail jerks the control yoke, twisting the _Falcon_ a full ninety degrees, avoiding the icy mass of carbon that has popped up out of the darkness ahead. Bits of icicles pelt the _Falcon,_ the loudest rainstorm Rey has ever heard. The sound of the carbonbergs outside, smashing into each other, is deafening.

“Do we have a route?” Bail asks, yelling to be heard.

 _“She’s thinking,”_ Chewie shouts back. The nav computer is a blur of flickering green and red lights.

 _Come on, Elthree,_ Rey thinks. _Help us. Get us to the Maw._

“Divert auxiliary power to the rear deflector shield,” Bail says, surprisingly calmly, eyes glued to the storm outside.

Chewie follows the order without complaint.

They dive under an unknown bit of what Rey thinks is steel, faded serial numbers on the side.

“How does all this stuff get here?” she asks, bewildered.

 _“The Maw sucks it in,”_ Chewie explains. _“All those black holes making up the Cluster. It creates a gravity well. All the space junk in the vicinity makes its way here. Kessel is constantly mopping up the Run.”_

Visibility is nearly nonexistent. The only light seems to be coming from the _Falcon_ herself, her floodlights illuminating the space ahead and around them. The ice outside the ship is flying in sharp, crystalline patterns, almost like a most lethal snowstorm, if a snowstorm could exist in Deep Space like this.

And Rey really has to hand it to Bail; he’s an _amazing_ pilot.

She knows part of it has to do with the Force, with Bail using the Force to help guide his movements, telling him which way to turn. But she knows part of it too, and perhaps a larger part at that, is Bail’s skill alone. The intuitiveness, the cleverness, the daring, that defined Han Solo. All the skills he passed on to his beloved sons.

But then, out of the darkness, like a mirage, like a nightmare, appears a _tentacle._

Rey can’t bite down her shriek of surprise.

 _“Summa-verminoth,”_ Chewie explains, as Bail banks hard to the right, diving under a wriggling tentacle leg. Outside, something _screams. “A gargantuan space-faring beast.”_

“It travels in _space?”_

 _“Luckily, they’re rare,”_ Chewie says, pleasantly.

“Chewie, be ready to lift the speed brake handle at my say,” Bail snaps.

 _“What?”_ Rey demands. Slowing down seems like a bad idea, not while there’s a space monster that seems interested in eating them.

“And get your other hand on the bi-lats,” Bail continues. “Rey, what’s the nav saying? How close are we?”

Rey twists forward, grabbing the back of Chewie’s chair for support. The _Falcon_ trembles around them, pelted ferociously by ice and debris. Everything seems to be creaking. “Um, a parsec, maybe two.”

“Stellar,” Bail grunts.

He pulls the control yoke up with both hands, gritting his teeth. The summa-vernimoth outside wails.

“Rey, go see if you can take out a couple of those arms,” Bail says. Rey is already running.

She races to the cannons in the middle of the _Falcon,_ sliding down the ladder in her haste. She leaps into the chair, jamming the headset over her head. She’s never actually fired one of the gunners before, has never needed to. She definitely never imagined her first go of it being to shoot down a space monster.

The gunner is clunky, prone to sudden stops and starts. Rey clenches her jaw, tapping into the Force to help her keep the cannon outside level. In her ear, Chewie and Bail are talking, directing the other, sharing tips and ideas.

Any other situation, she’d relish in their camaraderie.

A bulbous head, with a dozen glittering, neon blue eyes appears in front of Rey.

She begins to fire.

The summa-vernimoth screams, tentacles wiggling wildly, in pain or agitation, Rey isn’t sure. She twists in her seat, pointing the cannon in different directions, hoping to sustain maximum damage before the monster can get its tentacles on the _Falcon._ She watches as the monster bats aside a carbonberg like a bantha might swat a fly.

“Hold on tight, Rey,” Bail yells in her ear.

Rey drops her hold on the gunner, and grabs the seat under her.

The _Falcon_ suddenly _leaps_ forward, so quickly it’s like they’ve jumped into hyperspace. But the blue lines don’t appear outside the window. Instead, the darkness seems to become more pronounced, and the summa-vernimoth slips away.

Rey clambers out of the chair, climbing up the ladder.

“What did you do?” she demands as soon as she’s entered the cockpit.

“Flooded the intake and switched to the bi-lats,” Bail says. He looks at her, tossing a lock of black hair out of his eyes. He looks oddly young, she thinks; he looks immensely pleased.

Chewie gives a grunt. _“It was a good idea.”_

“A risky one,” Rey murmurs. The engine could’ve drowned, and they’d be easy prey.

 _“That’s why it was good,”_ Chewie replies. _“Only a Solo could come up with that space-happy idea.”_

Bail looks at him. Chewie holds his head high, eyes narrowed. Daring Bail to say something.

But he doesn’t.

He looks back outside, at the darkness, and clears his throat. “What’s the nav say?”

“We should be coming up on it,” Rey says, reading the data. The soft _ping_ of the _Falcon’s_ marker on the map. “Like, right--”

_“There.”_

Rey turns.

She had anticipated more darkness, as the Maw is a black holes cluster, and there shouldn’t be anything to _see;_ only the total absence of light. But to her surprise, the Maw is visible. Pricks of white light glow in the darkness ahead, light amplified by purple and dark blue, like bioluminescent algae on a dark sea.

“We can see it,” Rey whispers.

“The ionizing gases,” Bail murmurs. “They’re being drawn into it. But it’s… It’s so _stable._ When I was... when I was here last, I just kind of accepted it, but... this place is strange.”

Rey had expected the Maw to be chaos, the black holes collapsing on one another endlessly. But the sights outside are almost calm. The lights of the gases are swirling, outlining each black hole clearly, giving the Maw the shape of flower petals. Rey glances down at Ben’s drawing; the colors are almost identical.

“This can’t be natural,” Bail murmurs, staring at the sight, guiding the _Falcon_ into it. The carbonbergs and debris are gone; everything outside is shockingly still, and silent. “Nothing naturally made could be this stable.”

 _“There have been rumors,”_ Chewie says. _“Rumors suggesting an ancient civilization created the Maw.”_

“Who?” Rey demands. _“Why?”_

Chewie shrugs.

“I’m more inclined to believe that,” Bail says. “No natural cluster behaves like this.”

Rey forces herself to look away from the phenomenon ahead of her, turning instead to the nav computer. It’s entirely blank, save for a rough outline of what she guesses is the Maw itself. The only thing currently inside it seems to be the _Falcon._

 _Come on,_ Rey thinks. _It has to be here. It has to be._

The flood lights on the _Falcon_ had already been set to maximum power, and Bail keeps them ignited. He gently turns the control yoke, taking care to keep them out of range of the gravity wells of the black holes, moving expertly, the way Han Solo once taught him.

Chewie adjusts their auxiliary power, and Rey stares at the nav computer.

It’s entirely silent. Silent outside the ship, and silent inside the _Falcon._ There is nothing to compel the proximity alert.

 _“Rey-_ jow,” Chewie murmurs.

“We’ve just gotten here,” Rey snaps. “Let’s look.”

* * *

Hours.

Rey, Bail, and Chewie sit in a tense silence inside the cockpit. None of them dare to stand, to go for a drink of water or a trip to the fresher. Instead, they only confer with the various navigational tools of the control panel, and look out the windows.

The Maw is a sea of black, blue, and purple. It is, Rey has to admit, absolutely beautiful. One of the more surreal things she’s ever seen, one of the most wondrous by far. She wishes she was less tightly wound, that she could relax, and actually take it all in.

 _One day, maybe,_ Rey thinks.

But she knows, too, that if she is not able to bring Ben back that she won’t ever wish to return to this place.

Eventually, Chewie sighs, twisting in his chair to look at her. _“Rey.”_

Rey swallows, eyes focused on the nav computer. She shakes her head.

 _“Rey,”_ Chewie says, even more gently.

Rey bites her lip. The nav computer blurs.

“No,” she whispers.

Bail is quiet, eyes staring outside the window, at the blue and purple lights.

Chewie gets to his feet. He kneels down in the middle of the cockpit, so his head is level with Rey’s. He reaches forward, and takes her hand in his paw.

 _“Rey-_ jow,” Chewie whispers. _“I am so sorry.”_

Rey’s face feels cold and hot. Cold, with her clammy skin; hot, with the tears cascading down her cheeks.

“I wanted it to be real so badly,” Rey whispers.

The dyad myth, the space station in the middle of the Maw; just stories.

As Ben had predicted.

_“Well,” Ben says. “I haven’t gotten very far into it, but I’m not sure it’s really… practical. It’s a lot of stories, about death, and Force ghosts, and the Netherworld of the Force. Legends and myths.”_

_I’m not ready,_ Rey thinks, desperately. _I’m not ready to let you go._

_“No!” Rey calls, aloud, and she jerks, but Vesper plants her feet, and clings to Rey. “No, Ben! Ben!”_

In the cockpit of the _Millennium Falcon,_ Rey begins to sob. She turns, planting her face into Chewie’s furry shoulder. His arms come up, wrapping around her, encasing her in his strong warmth. She weeps, her tears matting and staining Chewie’s brown fur. His paw rubs in circles against her back, and she can feel him trembling, knows his grief is ready to explode out of him as well.

Rey squeezes her eyes shut.

_Rey frowns, turning her arm, so the gold disc settles over her palm. It flips, the oval lying perpendicular over her hand._

_She frowns, looking up to Ben._

_“Rey,” Ben says, quietly. “You know where to find me.”_

_What did it mean?_ Rey wonders, desperately. _Did it mean anything? Was it just a dream?_

_Was all of this just a dream?_

She is weeping so unashamedly, so ferociously, that her sobs nearly drown out the noise of the proximity sensor going haywire.

“Ninety degrees to the left,” Bail gasps, his voice oddly choked, and Rey realizes that while she and Chewie were cocooned in their own private grief, that Bail was wrestling with his own by himself.

Rey peels herself out of Chewie’s arms, as the Wookiee straightens, returning to his chair. Rey leans forward, and sees the new marker on the scanner, just where Bail had said. She brushes errant strands of hair out of her face, hurriedly wiping her eyes dry.

 _“What is it?”_ Chewie asks.

“It isn’t natural,” Rey says, reading the scan. “It’s some kind of… machine? It’s too big to be a ship.”

Hope, wretched, debilitating _hope._

Bail turns the control yoke, following the direction of the scanner. The beeps become more insistent.

Rey looks up.

And she sees it.

Emerging like a flower blooming, here, in the midst of the blues and purples of the Maw: a gold colored disc.

She sees now that the silver line in its center she’d never fully understood is, in fact, a row of windows. They are the kind of durable, steel-like mirror glass, the kind of thing needed to sustain protection and visibility this deep into space. The gold plates of the thing are of a similarly durable metal Rey has never seen before.

“Holy fuck,” Bail whispers.

 _“I can’t believe it,”_ Chewie says.

“It’s real,” Rey gasps. “It’s _real.”_

“Call them,” Bail directs, and Chewie scrambles for the headset, his other hand fumbling for the subspace radio. “Tell them we want to dock.”

“They must know we’re here,” Rey says.

Bail shrugs, eyes locked on the station. “I don’t think they get a lot of visitors. Who knows what their sensors are set up for.”

 _“What should I transmit, exactly?”_ Chewie asks.

“Tell them we’re here for _Bit Nitupta,”_ Rey says. Chewie nods, going to type in the transmission, when he frowns. “What is it?”

 _“They don’t seem to have a receptor for an electronic transmission,”_ Chewie says, tapping his headset. _“Their radio is asking for oral only.”_

Bail stares. “Kriff. This place is old.”

Rey stretches her hand out, and Chewie hands her the headset. She pulls it over her head, as he adjusts the radio. He gives her a firm nod.

“This is the _Millennium Falcon,”_ Rey says, clearly. “We are not a warship, and we mean no harm. We learned about this place in a text that we found in an old Jedi Explorations Corp outpost on Ord Canfre. We come to you now to go to _Bit Nitupta._ Or, as we’ve translated it… Beyond Shadows.”

Crackling static issues after Rey has finished speaking. Bail has flown them closer to the station. The windows are still inscrutable, a line of impenetrable gray glass. There are no lights on outside the station, the only light coming from the lights of the Maw, and the _Falcon._ With an awful feeling, Rey realizes the station could be entirely empty, that there might be no one to hear her plea.

Suddenly, a platform opens up in the bottom of the station; a dark, open space.

 _“Disa, Kukba,”_ croons a voice in Rey’s ear, and she jumps, and Bail and Chewie stare at her. _“T’a Hikla di Diqata.”_

Rey thinks, _Kriff, what if they only speak this Coremaic-hybrid, what if we can’t understand them,_ until the voice speaks again.

“Welcome,” the voice says, in coyly accented Basic. “To Sinkhole Station. We’ve been expecting you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My hot take about Kylo Ren, in canon, is that he inherited the worst traits of the Skywalkers. Anakin's raw emotion, Padmé's single-mindedness, Leia's rage, Luke's arrogance, Han's impulsiveness. Bail is like that Kylo Ren here.
> 
> The Maw, at least in the Old EU, is a bit of a mystery. The Old EU suggests it is an unnatural place, built by the ancient Celestials.
> 
> Sinkhole Station is an Old EU thing. My description of it as a "gold colored disc" is not canon, just something I made up, and I can't remember at this point why??
> 
> The voice coming from the Station is speaking in Aramaic, because it's an ancient, uncommon language and that fits for who is speaking it: the people who live in Sinkhole Station, who are Old EU canon. :)
> 
> \---
> 
> AO3 has been really slow in sending emails lately, which is Not Ideal, if you're like me, and eagerly waiting fic updates... Not saying this story might be one of those for you, but my update schedule is around 8:30 a.m. PST on Thursdays and around 2:00 p.m. PST on Sundays.


	26. Sinkhole Station

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Be brave, Rey of Nowhere. What returns is not the same, if it returns at all.”

Rey repeats the transmission to Bail and Chewie.

“They’ve been _expecting us?”_ Bail echoes, incredulous.

 _“Maybe they do have sensors set up, at the mouth of the Maw,”_ Chewie suggests, diplomatically. _“But so ancient, the_ Falcon _didn’t pick them up. Maybe they’ve been tracking us this whole time.”_

Bail frowns. “That’d be some pretty advanced tech. I get the feeling this place doesn’t have that.”

“What about Sinkhole Station?” Rey asks. “Have either of you ever heard of it?”

They shake their heads. Rey has never heard of it either, though she knows that isn’t saying much.

Bail turns the _Millennium Falcon_ down, guiding her to the platform open to them. The underside of Sinkhole Station looks the same as its top, more of that mysterious gold plating, and absolutely no discernable labels. No serial numbers, no words. Nothing. It could belong to anyone, or no one.

But someone is here. Someone has opened the door.

Chewie hits the button for the landing gear, and Bail sets the _Falcon_ down gently onto the platform. For a moment, it rests there, open space on either side, the blues and purples of the Maw, and the darkness of the Station overhead. And then there is a _lurch,_ forcing Rey to grab the backs of the pilot and co-pilot’s seats to steady herself, as the _Falcon,_ and the platform it's on, begins to rise.

The ascension is short. The platform slows to a stop. Rey, Bail, and Chewie sit in the darkness. Rey doesn’t think any of them are breathing.

And then the space is filled with light.

Artificial, fluorescent light, but light nonetheless. Rey sees they are in a hangar of some kind, a small one, with only a couple other ships landed inside. The ships are _ancient,_ models long outdated and obsolete, the kind of clunkers Rey would have a hard time selling parts of on Jakku. The walls are a plain white, as are the floors, giving the space the look of no boundaries.

And gathered on the floor, scattered, are people.

There aren’t many; only a dozen or so. They range wildly in age, from people close to Rey’s age, to the elderly. They are a wide variety of species, too. There is a Givin, pale white skin and skeletal appearance, head cocked as he stares at the _Falcon._ There is a Duros, green reptilian skin and noseless face, red eyes staring directly ahead. A Gotal, as tall as Chewie, with gray skin, thick white full body fur, its arms crossed tightly over its big chest. There are several humans, skin and eyes in all colors, staring impassively. A Rodian loiters against a wall, scaly skin looking washed out in the harsh light.

All of them are dressed in robes, robes colored in maroons, reds, and purples. And all of them look emaciated, like they are starving. 

“What the fuck,” Bail murmurs.

“Come on,” Rey says. She reaches forward, and snatches up the drawing of the Maw, and Ben’s notebook from where she’d abandoned it on a seat; they might have to explain how they found this Station.

Rey hurries to the bunk room, seizing _Ways of the Cosmic Force._ She realizes, too late, that she’s still dressed in Ben’s loose shirt and her plain trousers; it’ll have to do. She grabs her jacket, shrugging it on, as she fumbles for her rucksack, retrieving her and Bail’s lightsabers.

Bail and Chewie wait for her by the entry ramp. Chewie’s trusted bowcaster is slung over his shoulder.

Rey places his lightsaber in Bail’s palm. Chewie issues a distressed growl.

“Just in case,” Rey says, holding Bail’s stare. “A last, _last,_ resort. Please. Okay?”

Bail swallows, but nods.

Rey takes a deep breath, and hits the button to open the ramp. She walks down it, holding her head high, doing her best to suppress her fear. Chewie and Bail trail her.

The Givin steps forward. Rey has never met one in person, only read about them in a text Kes had given the children on Yavin IV. Givin appear to be living, humanoid skeletons, and the effect in this room of white is chilling. The Givin stares down at Rey, cocking his head the other way, and blinking with eyes that look less like eyes and more like sunken black holes in its hard face.

It extends a hand, a bony hand with five long fingers.

 _“Disa, Kukba,”_ the Givin says, its voice coming out of its black mouth, and it is the voice that spoke to Rey in the _Falcon._ _“T’a Hikla di Diqata.”_

“Hello,” Rey says. “I don’t speak your language, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, I know,” the Givin returns. How strange it is, to see a skeleton smile. “I apologize. It has been so long since I’ve had to speak in Basic. Your tongue escapes me. My name is Feryl.”

“Feryl,” Rey repeats, and only then does she take Feryl’s hand. “I’m Rey.”

“Rey of Nowhere,” Feryl says, and a chill runs over her spine. “Welcome.”

While Rey grapples with the mysterious Feryl knowing her background, Feryl turns, looking at Chewie.

“Chewbacca,” he murmurs.

Chewie stares, and makes no move to offer Feryl a handshake. Feryl does not seem surprised. He turns, last, to Bail.

“Bail Organa-Solo,” Feryl says, and Bail’s jaw is clenched so tightly Rey starts to worry he might crack a tooth or two. “Formerly known as Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order. The grandson of Anakin Skywalker, alias Darth Vader. The son of the scoundrel Han Solo and the Princess of Alderaan Leia Organa. The nephew of Master Jedi Luke Skywalker. Your ancestors precede your steps here.”

“I am not my ancestors,” Bail says, in a low snarl. He’s clenched his fists at his sides. Rey keeps an eye on the lightsaber clipped to his belt.

Feryl inclines his head. “No. But you carry them anyway.”

“Please,” Rey interjects, as Bail looks somewhat murderous. “How do you know who we are? And that we were coming?”

“What _is_ this place,” Bail asks, nostrils flared.

“Sinkhole Station,” Feryl says, as if this explains everything. He seems to gather from their expressions that, in fact, it does not explain anything, as he adds, “The Temple of Visions. You come here to walk _Bit Nitupta._ You come here to walk Beyond Shadows.”

“That’s real?” Rey asks, quietly.

Feryl grins. There are no teeth in his skeleton mouth.

“Child,” he coos, _“Nothing_ is real.”

* * *

“We are the Mind Walkers.”

Feryl has taken Rey, Bail, and Chewie to another room. It’s still decorated in that inescapable, unending white; Rey had nearly missed the existence of the couch she now perches on. At her side, Bail is stiff, hands gripping his knees. Chewie stands near the door, refusing the seat. Feryl pours them all tea, and Rey knows he’ll be the only one drinking it. At least until they get answers.

“Mind Walkers,” Rey echoes.

“We come from a great many traditions of Force sensitives,” Feryl says. “The Disciples of Ragnos, the Fallanassi, the Jensaarai, the Potentium Heretics, the Reborn, the Far Seekers, the Inner Seers, and much more. Including the Jedi, Master.”

Rey blushes at the honorific. Bail glances at her.

“We all came to a conclusion,” Feryl continues, “That our former sects, our former organizations, did not understand things correctly, or wholly. They failed to grasp the truth, the truth being that everything beyond the Force is illusion. Here in Sinkhole Station, we untether our minds from our bodies, and walk _Bit Nitupta._ Beyond Shadows.”

“What is Beyond Shadows?” Rey asks.

“A realm of the Force,” Feryl says. “A halfway place between the Living Force and the Cosmic Force, as Sinkhole Station is the halfway place between Beyond Shadows and the conscious universe. In Beyond Shadows, everything happens at the same time, and everything happens in the same place, because time and reality are _illusions,_ Rey.”

“Let me guess,” Bail drawls, _“Food_ is also an illusion.”

Every Mind Walker Rey has seen looks starved.

Feryl inclines his head. “The Force cannot sustain the body indefinitely. We have lost Mind Walkers to starvation and malnutrition when they walk too deeply Beyond Shadows. It can be dangerous. Dangerous, too, to let the mind wander so far from the physical body.”

The tea is white. Rey knows she shouldn’t be surprised. There’s an aesthetic here.

“So it’s… the Netherworld?” Rey asks.

“A halfway place,” Feryl corrects, gently. “The dead have been known to wander Beyond Shadows. Most souls will continue on to the Netherworld without delay, but more ambitious souls will walk backward, to Beyond Shadows. Those souls typically are restless spirits, with unfinished business for the Living.”

 _Unfinished business,_ Rey thinks.

 _“How did you know we were coming?”_ Chewie asks, speaking up from the doorway. _“Did you see us in that place?”_

“As I said, time and reality are illusions,” Feryl says, still quite cheerful. “In Beyond Shadows, everything happens at once. Every universe exists, every outcome can be explored. We saw you choose to come here. We saw you arrive. And we saw you leave.”

“So, what, free will doesn’t exist?” Bail asks.

Feryl smiles his eerie, bony grin. “Oh, it does. You’ve simply already made every choice you will ever make.”

Rey is pretty sure there isn’t anything _simple_ about that.

“You know why we’re here, then,” she says, quietly.

“Oh, yes, _tik Habib d’a Ziwa,”_ Feryl says, nodding sagely, more somber now than before. “We saw Ben Organa-Solo die. A beautiful death.”

“Beautiful,” Bail echoes. Rage dances in his dark eyes.

“Don’t despair, _Anhura Dmu,”_ Feryl says. A muscle tics in Bail’s jaw. Rey is sure he doesn’t know what he was called either. _“M’a Ziwa Dmu_ was always going to make that choice. Ever since he first felt you in your mother’s womb. He was always going to die for you.”

“He died for all of us,” Rey interjects, spotting the flash of pain in Bail’s eyes.

Feryl scratches his chin with one alarmingly long, thin skeletal finger. “Mm. Yes.”

“So you saw Ben die, and you know why we’re here,” Rey continues. “You know we’re here to bring him back. Like in the dyad myth.”

She’s clung onto _Ways of the Cosmic Force_ and Ben’s notebook since stepping off the _Falcon._ She flips through _Ways_ now, pulling up the pages with the dyad myth, and offering the text to Feryl. He takes it in his bony hands. She knows he won’t have any trouble reading the ancient text.

His black eyes dart over the pages, as he reads the myth. Rey waits, her hands folded tightly in her lap.

Chewie startles as the door to the room slides open, revealing the Gotal from earlier. He walks into the room without a word, smoothly taking the text offered to him by Feryl.

Rey’s eyes flicker between the two. They must have a Force meld she can’t detect, because how else was Feryl able to call him--

Feryl catches her confusion. “I knew Seek would come here to read the text after me. I saw it in my travels Beyond Shadows.”

 _Right,_ Rey thinks. Because time is meaningless, and everything happens at once.

Feryl looks up at the Gotal; Seek. “Does it look familiar, my friend?”

“Where did you get this text?” Seek asks, in a deep voice.

“Why ask?” Bail snaps. “You must already know.”

“I do, but you do not understand why I ask,” Seek replies, smoothly, flipping through the text. “This text once belonged to me.”

“Were you…” Rey pauses, reflecting on Feryl’s words earlier. “Are you a Jedi?”

Seek smiles at her. “I was one once, Master. A very long time ago. In the waning years of the Republic. I grew disenchanted with the Jedi religion; I felt it was too one-sided. I thought we were not allowing ourselves to comprehend the Force as it wholly was.”

Bail is staring a self-satisfied hole into Rey’s head. 

He has sounded like Seek before. 

“And so I left the Order,” Seek says, “and traveled the galaxy, searching for revelation. I eventually found it here, among the Mind Walkers.” He closes the text with a brisk _snap._ “I thought I lost this text long ago, in the ExplorCorps outpost on Ord Canfre I was stationed in. It was stolen from me.”

He looks at her. His eyes are surprisingly small, and a bright red. Rey frowns back.

“Will it work?” Bail asks, breaking Rey’s stare down with Seek. She’d nearly forgotten her query that had led to this confrontation.

“The Force dyad is a rare phenomenon,” Feryl replies. “Unseen for generations. Two beings that are separate physically, but one in the Force. A connection like none other. It has been known to… create seismic waves in the Cosmic Force.”

Bail glances at Rey, an eyebrow raised, his scorn obvious. _This is not a real answer._

“Any answer we give you on the likelihood of your operation succeeding or not is pointless,” Seek interjects, perhaps picking up on Bail’s irritation. “You will try either way. That is what happens when you want to save someone you love. You cannot help but try.”

_“Ben made a good effort,” Leia muses, and Rey’s heart thuds in her chest at the soft way Leia says his name. “But there was no preparing. Not for you, and not for me. And I think he knew that, he just--”_

_“Needed to try, anyway.”_

_Yes,_ Rey thinks. _Yes, I need to try. And Bail does, too._

* * *

The Mind Walkers serve them the strangest meal Rey has ever eaten. The food is plain, and tasteless, and packaged oddly. Rey thinks the food is rations of some kind, from some society she is unfamiliar with. She suspects they are all very old, possibly out-of-date, possibly toxic. Though she doesn’t think the Mind Walkers are trying to kill her, Bail, or Chewie, she thinks they might have forgotten how most people eat food because they like it; not solely because it’s a necessity.

“What’s with the tea?” Bail asks, nodding at the white tea in front of him. “Is it a sedative? Drink it, and you go Beyond Shadows?”

Feryl laughs. “No, no… Not _this_ tea.”

Rey pauses mid-chew. “But there is a tea?”

 _“Oruta,”_ Feryl reples.

 _“Bless you,”_ Chewie says, and Feryl cackles at the joke. Chewie is startled.

“Thank you, friend,” Feryl says, grinning. Chewie stares. _“Oruta_ is a very rare seed, grown in space.”

“In _space?”_ Rey exclaims.

Feryl nods. “Yes. Like I said; a rare seed. It grows here in the Maw. We find the seeds among cosmic dust, the matter that generates the zodiacal light that illuminates the Maw. You must have seen the light on your way to us. The blues, and the purples?”

“Interstellar dust,” Bail says, quietly.

“Exactly,” Feryl says, smiling. “Quite a magical, mysterious thing, cosmic dust. We don’t really know where it comes from, or its purpose. But the consensus seems to be that it originates following the explosion of a dying star.”

_“Stars die all the time.”_

Rey sets her nutrient bar down, suddenly not hungry at all.

“But your supernova didn’t leave dust behind, did he?” Feryl continues, looking closely at Rey. “He became one with the Force.”

Rey looks at him. “And now I seek him Beyond Shadows.”

She grips the Alderaanian asteroid in her palm as she speaks. Feryl’s abyss-like eyes flicker down at the stone, before turning back up to Rey.

“A lost prince of a lost planet,” he muses. “I can hear the stories now…”

He trails off, a bit of a dazed smile on his face. Rey stares.

And then Bail _snaps._

He’s on his feet, hands wrapped tightly around the Givin’s neck, yanking him out of his seat bodily, and slamming him against the wall. It is so painfully similar to the way he strangled Rey in the kitchen on Ajan Kloss, that for a moment, Rey is utterly frozen, trapped in the traumatic memory. Bail is snarling, his face a mask of rage, as he shoves Feryl higher up the wall. Rey has never seen a skull get strangled before.

The doors to the room burst open. Rey catches a glimpse of Seek and a human woman with brown skin and long black hair before Seek raises his arm, using the Force to shove Bail across the room. Bail soars through the air, slamming to his feet, using his own grasp on the Force to steady himself.

The woman approaches Feryl, who’s sprawled on the floor.

“Feryl, are you all right?” she asks. She’s young, maybe a little older than Rey.

“Yes, my dear,” Feryl says, kindly, patting the hand the woman has on his shoulder. And he does sound perfectly fine, neither hoarse nor concerned. He looks across the room, and smiles serenely at Bail. “Child, did you not know that Givin are capable of existing in a vacuum for an entire day? You’d need to work a lot harder to strangle me.”

Bail straightens. “I’m game to try again.”

“Careful, _Anhura,”_ Seek spits. “You are here because we allow it. We can send you away whenever we’d like.”

“No!” Rey cries, getting to her feet. She extends an arm towards Bail, imploring him to remain in place. “He won’t do anything like that again, I promise.”

“What the hell did you just call me?” Bail asks, glaring at Seek.

“He called you moonlight, Bail,” Feryl says, getting to his feet, brushing nonexistent dust off his robes. The woman behind him eyes Bail and Rey speculatively. “As we call Rey _Kukba;_ starlight. And Ben, _ziwa._ Sunlight. Luminous beings.”

“I know,” Rey breathes.

Moons, and suns, and stars.

The woman, whose big hazel eyes have been staring holes into Rey and Bail, turns her head, to look at Feryl.

 _“Qashish,”_ she murmurs. _“Ili Msauzbani d’a shalmana ziwa? La rahma? Anhura n’at purqana; n’at matu.”_

“I heard my name,” Bail snarls.

“This is my friend, Rhondi Tremaine,” Feryl explains. “One of our newer Mind Walkers.”

 _“Disa,”_ Rhondi says, dryly, using the word Rey associates with _Hello._ “I was merely sharing my misgivings that you’re worthy of our help. Not every story deserves to be told.”

Rey shakes her head, taking a step closer to her. “But you’ve already helped us.”

Rhondi frowns. “What makes you say that?”

“Everything happens at the same time in Beyond Shadows,” Rey says, glancing at Feryl, who only smiles enigmatically. She continues on. “There is a moment in the past where I stole _Ways of the Cosmic Force_ from Seek in the Jedi Exploration Corps outpost on Ord Canfre.”

She’s bluffing, a little. She doesn’t know for sure if she did it. But Seek’s comment that the text had been stolen from him struck her, as had the way he’d stared at her.

Who would know better where to hide an ancient text inside the bowels of a building than a scavenger? Who would know where exactly to place that text for the scavenger-turned-Jedi to find later, than the scavenger-turned-Jedi herself?

She keeps her gaze focused on Rhondi, aware of Seek standing there as well.

And then Rhondi smiles, a big smile that is all clean, white teeth.

 _“Oura,”_ she says, and inclines her head, a universal gesture of respect. “All right, _J’idaii._ Let’s get started.”

* * *

The _oruta_ seed looks like a speck of dust. Rhondi hands one to Rey, who studies the tiny seed in her palm, holding it closely to her eyes, in an attempt to get a better look at it. It barely looks like a seed at all. She can’t figure out how this tiny thing can compel the consumer to walk Beyond Shadows.

Bail says as much.

“The _oruta_ is an ingredient in the process,” Rhondi says. Her scornful temperament has all but disappeared since Rey spoke about stealing Seek’s text. Now, she’s enthusiastic, and helpful. The change is almost dizzying. “A very specific form of meditation is required as well.”

“What meditation?” Rey asks.

“The _Ruyana,”_ Feryl says. He’s brewing the tea, steeping a single _oruta_ seed in each cup, a cup that is about the same size as the shot glasses in the _Millennium Falcon._ “The meditation. It’s less a unique form, and more that it requires specific, but simple, rules. After slipping into a state of meditation, you count from one to seven, picturing each number in your head as you do so.”

Feryl stops speaking, looking up to see Rey and Bail looking at him expectantly. He doesn’t continue. 

“What, that’s it?” Rey demands, incredulous. 

“You were expecting more?”

“Just a bit,” Bail mutters. “That seed must be one hell of a drug.”

“It’s a literal gateway drug,” Rhondi says, and Bail cracks a small smile. 

Rey is decidedly less amused. “So, just… drink the tea, and count to seven?”

“While undertaking the _Ruyana,”_ Feryl says. “Yes. It does require practice, of course. Mind Walkers can spend an entire lifetime navigating _Bit Nitupta,_ and come out only having walked a mile in the realm.”

“I don’t have that kind of time,” Rey snaps.

“In this life? No,” Rhondi says. “In Beyond Shadows? You have all of time.”

 _But I can’t spend my whole life walking Beyond Shadows,_ Rey thinks.

_Rey looks at Ben, his downcast eyes, dark eyelashes, the hint of stubble running along his jaw, and an ominous feeling settles in her gut._

_The feeling that they are running out of time._

Feryl hands Bail and Rey a glass of tea each. He sits down on the floor in front of them, holding his own cup.

“You’re coming with us?” Bail asks, eyebrow raised.

“For the first time or two, yes,” Feryl says. He crosses his legs in front of him, and Rey mirrors him instinctively, Bail doing so as well more slowly. “You’ll need a chaperone at the start. A way to get your sea legs under you, so to speak. _Bit Nitupta_ can be extraordinarily disorienting.”

Rey can believe that.

Feryl raises his glass, saluting her and Bail. They raise theirs in response. Rhondi crosses her arms over her chest, watching. Chewie is positioned near the door, his shoulders stiff. Rey looks at him, and gives him an assuring nod.

 _“Dirka d’Hiya,”_ Feryl says, and throws his tea back like it’s a shot.

 _“Dirka d’Hiya,”_ Rey says, copying him. Bail does the same.

She sets her glass down, and closes her eyes. She sinks into meditation, giving herself over to it, forcing her mind to meditate like this is a normal setting. Like she is in the sunlight of Ajan Kloss, Finn moving into Rising Meditation at her side. Like she is sitting with Jannah on the plains, guiding her apprentice through relaxation steps. Like she is on Ahch-To with Ben, listening to his voice as he tells her about the Force.

 _One,_ Rey thinks, and she pictures the number.

_Two._

_Three._

_Four._

_Five._

_Six._

_Seven._

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

Initially, she thinks she’s just fallen asleep, and is in fact dreaming. Because she’s in the _Millennium Falcon,_ and it looks just the same as always. There’s the ancient dejarik table, above the grimy floor, below the cracked ceiling. There’s the communications station, loudly humming away. There’s the hallway to the cockpit, and the one to the fresher and galley.

A low whistle makes Rey turn.

Feryl stands there, looking comically out of place, with his purple robes and skeleton body. He folds his hands primly in front of him, studying the space around him. His entire body is highlighted in white light, not unlike the blue light that surrounds Force ghosts.

“This is the freighter you came to Sinkhole Station in, is it not?” he wonders.

“This is Beyond Shadows?” Rey demands, elated. “I’m doing it?”

“You are walking _Bit Nitupta,_ yes, Rey.”

Rey beams. She stares around her in newfound awe.

“So this could be any time?” she checks. “The past, or the future?”

Feryl nods. “Or another universe entirely, yes. But it isn’t random. Your subconscious chose this time and place for you to visit. There is something for you here.”

Rey has spent a lot of time on the _Falcon_ in the last five years, which makes it difficult to tell exactly _when_ she is based on the look of this space alone. Still, she tries: “Ben?”

“He won’t hear you,” Feryl interjects.

“Not at all? But then, how--”

“His Cosmic soul may hear you, if you are near,” Feryl explains. “Our Cosmic souls are the souls we have that tether us, that we carry with us into the Netherworld. In doing so, we leave our Living soul behind, the soul that lives inside our bodies. The differences between the two are minimal, but critical, especially in _Bit Nitupta_ and the Netherworld.” he pauses, and adds, “Occasionally, we will speak to a Living soul, often one in the past. But that is something that must be done _rarely.”_

“Why?”

Feryl’s smile is dark, and grim. “Even among Force-sensitives… Hearing disembodied voices is not a welcome phenomenon.”

Rey can easily imagine how Ben would panic if he started hearing her voice randomly.

Besides; he’s never once mentioned to her that he heard her, randomly, somewhere. And if all of this has already happened… 

“If it helps,” Feryl adds, “It’s difficult to get a Living soul to hear us. We are very far away.”

She isn’t sure if he means literally or metaphorically, or if there’s even a real difference between the two Beyond Shadows. Rey frowns, still studying the space, and it hits her what’s missing.

“Bail,” she breathes. “Where’s Bail?”

Feryl shrugs, looking as unconcerned as a skull can. “Perhaps he was not able to reach the proper state of _Ruyana.”_

Rey thinks this isn’t really surprising.

She starts to walk forward; or, she tries to. She quickly realizes she isn’t actually touching the ground. She’s floating instead, like there are hover propellers on the soles of her boots. Aside from this, Rey feels mostly normal, though maybe a bit lighter, like she’s on a planet with poor gravity. She can also see the white light encasing her body, whenever she turns her head. Feryl follows, a silent and spooky observer. 

The door to the bunk room is closed. Rey raises her hand, and touches the metal; her hand falls _through_ the door.

She spins around to look at Feryl.

“We can manipulate objects in the Living Force,” Feryl says. “But it requires great concentration, and should also be done sparingly. We had to make all the doors on Sinkhole Station automatic; so many of us were running smack into them.”

Rey smiles at the humor. Feryl gestures at the door, and Rey… floats into it.

Initially, she thinks the bunk room is empty, cleaned out, because the mattresses are gone. But then her eyes track down, and she sees where they’ve gone.

She _remembers._

Rey and Ben lie on the two mattresses on the floor. They are both asleep, Ben’s chest to Rey’s back, his arm around her, the two of them curled closely together. The sheets cover them messily, hinting at a nakedness Rey knows is a fact.

It is them, on the way to Coruscant.

She can’t stop staring at Ben.

It has only been a few days, but seeing him now; it feels like it’s been a _lifetime._ There is the mole on his cheek she loves to kiss. There is the errant curl his hair makes at the back of his head. There are the subtle freckles scattered over his nose. There is the scar he got from a backroom brawl darkening at his clavicle. There is the cord with the gold die on it, hanging from his throat.

Rey lifts her hand, clutching the same exact die, on her own neck.

Feryl is silent behind her.

Rey can only tremble.

He is _here,_ he is right there, he is so close… And so far away. This is the past. This is the calm before the storm. This is Ben and Rey, when they were still _Ben and Rey._

_I’m here, Ben,_ Rey thinks. _I’m here, my love._

He sleeps on, the tip of his nose brushing Past Rey’s skin.

Rey clutches her hands to her sides, fighting the urge to reach out and touch. Though she knows now that Ben is unlikely to feel her either way, she’s worried if she touches him now, she’ll never be able to let go.

She doesn’t know why she was brought here, what _Bit Nitupta_ thinks she can learn from this space, this moment in time.

It feels unbearably cruel.

She shakes her head, and she whispers, _“Ben.”_

To her shock, and wonder, Ben’s eyes slide open.

He blinks, that disoriented, puzzled look one has immediately after waking up from a solid nap. He turns his head a bit, looking at the chronometer on the wall.

He does not speak, does not say her name, but he’s _heard her._

Rey gasps a stunned laugh, and her heart thuds in her chest, and tears spill down her cheeks--

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

She is sitting in the same meditative pose she’d gone Beyond Shadows in, legs crossed neatly in front of her on the floor. Across from her, Bail is staring, looking at her with the same intense, focused look he gave her on Snoke’s dreadnought, after they’d killed the guards, and he’d been trying to win her over to his side.

“Well, well,” Feryl says, and Rey looks at him. He’s grinning, looking quite elated. “You are full of _surprises, Kukba!”_

“What happened?” Rhondi asks, curious.

Chewie approaches Rey, touching her shoulder. _“Are you okay?”_

“Rey called for her _habib,_ and he heard her!”

Bail’s stare intensifies further. “You saw Ben?”

Rey nods. “From a few days ago. On our way to Coruscant. He was asleep, and I said his name, and he… He woke up.”

Bail issues a long breath through his nose, briefly closing his eyes.

“Where were you?” Rey asks, frowning.

“Wrong headspace, I guess,” Bail says, shooting a look at Rhondi, who nods a confirmation.

The automatic doors of the room slide open, revealing Seek, holding _Ways of the Cosmic Force_ in his hand. He frowns at the tension in the room, furry eyebrow raised.

“What’s happened?” he wonders.

“Rey is a prodigy,” Feryl says. “She’d make an excellent Mind Walker.”

“I’m not really here to become a Mind Walker,” Rey says.

Rhondi smirks. “Oh, we know why you’re here.”

“And that’s why _I’m_ here,” Seek says. He holds up the text. “Your myth is of _Baba al Dukhrana.”_

* * *

_“Baba al Dukhrana,”_ Seek explains. “It is the Mirror of Remembrance. You can find it through the _Sulita-Nukraya;_ the Mists of Forgetfulness.”

“These are places in Beyond Shadows?” Bail asks, eyebrow raised. “I thought it was, like… an unconscious plane?”

Rhondi nods. “It is. But like all planes, there are levels.”

Bail looks at Rey. His gaze clearly says, _Did you know that all planes have levels?_

“What about the Mirror, then?” Rey asks Seek.

“Inside the Mirror, you can see your other half,” Seek says, and both Rey and Bail straighten, giving him their full attention. He smirks. “The only one who has ever belonged to you. That is why it is called the Mirror of Remembrance, yes? How better to remember anything about yourself without _all_ of you?”

Bail and Rey stare, enraptured. Seek shrugs.

“But this business about calling their name, and compelling them to turn around?” he asks. He shrugs. “I think that is where your _dyad_ myth comes from. I’m not sure it really means that only the dyad can call one another, but… It would be romantic to think so, no?”

Maybe, Rey thinks. _Maybe_ it could be romantic.

“So the mirror is through the… Mists of Forgetfulness,” Bail says, glancing at Rhondi, who smiles enigmatically. “And where is that?”

Seek pulls Ben’s notebook out from his robe pocket, flipping it open, revealing the Lothal pages.

“Your _habib_ was very detailed,” he comments, smiling at Rey. “These are remarkable illustrations.” He waves a finger over Ben’s drawings of the fountain, the pool, the lake, and the throne.

He taps his finger on the drawing of the fountain. It’s a clear blue fountain, in a lovely white courtyard. “This is the _Omd-Hilqa._ The Font of Power. Though the courtyard it is in, as I have seen it, is not as clean and nice as it is in this drawing. Perhaps it varies. Legend claims that if you drink from the waters of this fountain, you gain the full power of the past and future.”

Bail raises an eyebrow. “Have you drunk from it?”

Seek snorts. “Gods, no. Why would I?”

Bail blinks, clearly thinking the answer is obvious.

“The power over all things would drive the drinker mad,” Seek says. “The real power is in refusing the temptation.”

Bail looks distinctly unimpressed. Rey nods at the next illustration, a dark pool in an ugly grotto. “What’s that?”

 _“Yardna di Manda,”_ Seek says. “The Pool of Knowledge. Drinking from the pool will give you the full knowledge of the past and future.” Seek looks at Bail. “To drink from the pool guarantees madness as well.”

“If you say so,” Bail mutters. Rey resists the instinct to elbow him in the ribs.

“The lake is _Mia-Hayya,_ the Lake of Apparitions,” Seek says, tapping Ben’s drawing of a gray lake shrouded in fog. “You can see deceased Force sensitives on its surface, though beware; they are not who they once were. But if you walk _into_ the lake, you may fall into _Mashita Alma;_ the Depths of Eternity. There is no recovery from the depths, no way to be saved. You are simply lost forever.”

Rey points to the fog. “Are those the Mists?”

“The Mists of Forgetfulness, yes.”

“Why are they called that?”

Seek smirks. “It is said that you can hear voices in the mists, the voices of the Force sensitives in the lake. But these voices _lie.”_

Rey doesn’t quite understand, but Bail interrupts.

“And the mirror is through it?” he asks.

“Yes,” Seek replies. “Across the lake. Water is a transitional form, after all.”

Rey frowns, opening her mouth, but Bail speaks again before she can.

“And what’s that?”

He’s pointing to Ben’s last drawing: the large, black stone throne.

Rey feels a shiver run up her spine. In the Temple on Lothal, she thought she’d actually seen someone on the throne, and had reached out to touch the mosaic.

The next thing she knew, she was on the ground, fresh from the memory of Ben being with her on Jakku.

 _“Suf d’a Ginza Rba,”_ Seek says. “The Throne of Balance. You can see its reflection in the Pool of Knowledge. The figure on the throne is a predictor of the future.”

“How so?” Rey asks, frowning.

“Well,” Seek drawls, smirking at Bail. “When I glimpsed the throne fifteen years ago, I saw a creature called Snoke sitting on it.”

Bail flushes, looking away.

“I’d be quite curious to see who is on the throne now,” Feryl comments, his first words since Seek began his talk. Rey wonders if they ever saw Bail on the throne, or if it’s simply been that long since anyone searched out the throne in Beyond Shadows.

“Is there a map?” Rey asks. “Something we can take with us, to have there? To make sure we’re going the right direction?”

“No map,” Rhondi says. “Just the Force.”

Rey supposes she shouldn’t be surprised.

She twists on her seat, looking at Bail. He turns his head, looking away from Ben’s drawing of the throne to meet her eyes.

“We can’t be distracted,” Rey says. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Rhondi slip out of the room. “We can’t linger near the Pool or the Fountain. We’re looking for the Lake, and the Mists, and the Mirror.”

Bail scowls. “I know.”

“You have a deadline,” Seek says. “The longer Ben walks Beyond Shadows, the less likely it is you will be able to pull him back, before he has simply gone too far, and crossed into the Netherworld. If that happens… Well. You may see him again in Beyond Shadows, one day; but no closer.”

Rey’s heart practically stops. “How much time?”

“Impossible to say. Time--”

“Is an _illusion,_ we fucking know,” Bail snaps. Feryl looks pleased. “Fine.”

“Why did I wake up?” Rey asks, hurriedly, looking at Feryl. “Just now, in the _Falcon?_ I didn’t mean to.”

“I think you were so surprised and happy you knocked your mind out of the _Ruyana,”_ Feryl replies. “You must remember that you are only in _Bit Nitupta_ on a spiritual level; your physical body remains here. It will probably not always feel like that while you are there.”

His words are ominous, but, Rey thinks, critical. She nods tightly.

The door opens, revealing Rhondi. 

She holds two cups of the _oruta._

* * *

Chewie hugs Rey tightly.

“I’m not _really_ going anywhere,” Rey says. “You’ll be able to watch me the whole time.”

 _“Your mind will wander,”_ Chewie replies. _“When should I be concerned?”_

Rey bites her lip. She thinks of Feryl’s warnings, of how Mind Walkers have been known to accidentally starve to death while walking Beyond Shadows. She thinks of Finn and Jannah, waiting for their Master back on Coruscant. She thinks of Leia, who is counting on Rey’s return with both of her sons.

“Don’t let me starve to death,” Rey murmurs. “Ask Rhondi or Feryl to keep an eye on us. They should have a better sense than any of us for how long is… is too long.”

If she is forced back… Will she eat a meal, sleep a little, and then take the _oruta_ again?

How many times will she try?

She draws back from Chewie, walking to one of the two pillows on the floor. Outside the window, the Maw beckons, circles of dark blues and purples, moving almost lazily from this great distance.

Bail is already seated on the other pillow, watching her and Chewie dispassionately.

 _“I might shoot you to wake you up,”_ Chewie threatens. _“I haven’t decided.”_

Bail pats his left side, where Rey knows the scar from the shot from Chewie’s bowcaster is. “Get the other side this time, won’t you? I’m lopsided.”

“Bail,” Rey mutters, warningly, but to her surprise, Chewie roars a laugh. Bail turns to her, smirking, and Rey thinks, _boys._

She rolls her shoulders, making herself comfortable. Rhondi hands her a cup of the _oruta._

 _“Nazuraya,”_ she murmurs.

“What does that mean?” Rey asks.

“A literal translation is something like _secret knowledge,”_ Rhondi says. “But when we say it before we walk Beyond Shadows, it means, _godspeed. Nazuraya, Kukba._ I hope I get to meet your _habib.”_

“And what does _habib_ mean?”

Rhondi smiles. _“Beloved.”_

 _My beloved,_ Rey thinks. _My worry-droid, my best hope, my kind man, my love._

_“All the way,” Rey says, and by that she means, I love you, we can’t be separated._

Rhondi steps closer to Rey suddenly, to whisper in her ear: “Be brave, Rey of Nowhere. What returns is not the same, if it returns at all.”

Rey stares at her. Rhondi gives her a gentle smile.

Rhondi turns to Bail next, handing him the other cup. She smiles at him, and says, _“Anhura at purqana, e’t matu.”_

Bail frowns, eyebrow raised, and Rhondi leans in to whisper something in his ear. His eyes widen slightly in response to what she says; when she pulls away, looking at him meaningfully, he gives a curt nod. Rhondi smiles enigmatically, and steps back to stand next to Chewie.

Rey frowns. “What did she say?”

“I’ll tell you when we get back,” Bail replies, and Rey’s frown deepens. But Bail only rolls his shoulders, staring down at the tiny cup in his hand. “Ready?”

Rey looks down at her own cup, at the milky liquid. “Ready.”

“See you on the other side, sweetheart,” Bail says. Rey rolls her eyes.

 _“Dirka d’Hiya,”_ they say, in unison, and tip their glasses back, swallowing the shot of tea.

Rey closes her eyes, slipping into meditation, the _Ruyana._

As she did earlier, she begins to count.

_One._

(A man with a tight frown stares down at her in the bowels of an ancient freighter.)

_Two._

(A man with a blood-splattered face walks towards her in a snowstorm.)

_Three._

(A man with a sea blown hair takes her hands under the island sun.)

_Four._

(A man with trembling shoulders sobs into her legs.)

_Five._

(A man with gentle hands brushes his fingers through her hair as he reads.)

_Six._

(A man with dark brown eyes stares unseeingly at the red sky.)

_Seven._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beyond Shadows, the Mind Walkers, the Lake of Apparitions, the Mirror of Remembrance, the Throne of Balance, the Mists of Forgetfulness, the Pool of Knowledge, the Fountain of Power: all Old EU. There was a series of books in which Jacen Solo, twin of Jaina and son of Leia and Han, visits Sinkhole Station on a sabbatical to learn the ways of the Force. After Jacen turns to the Dark Side, Luke and his son Ben Skywalker visit Sinkhole Station and walk Beyond Shadows, in an effort to learn what happened that made Jacen turn.
> 
> Feryl, Seek, and Rhondi Tremaine are Old EU Mind Walkers.
> 
> I am taking some liberties with how Beyond Shadows works in this story. For example, the Oruta: I cannot believe you can just count to 7 and detach your mind, so I added a catalyst for the process here. I will also be expanding the capabilities of Beyond Shadows.
> 
> If you are curious about my non-canon, non-accurate Aramaic words for the Beyond Shadows places, you can find them [here.](https://mainfacts.com/aramaic-english-dictionary-words/A)
> 
> Some more important ones: "Bit Nitupta" means House of Pre-Existence. "Anhura" is lunar light, "Kukba" is star, and "Ziwa" is solar light. "Dmu" means twin, or double. "Hikla diqata" is a compound phrase for Temple of visions/appearances. "Dirka d'Hiya" means Road of Life. "Oruta" means enlightenment/illumination, and "Oura" means glory. What Rhondi said to Bail will be discussed later.
> 
> Chapter 16 of this story started with Ben thinking someone just said his name. :)


	27. The Last Con

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Huh. Never knew the Force could do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mood music: ["You Are A Memory"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGz98WdA2vA) by Message to Bears.

Rey opens her eyes.

Rain pours all around her, but it does not strike her body, as she is not really here, is not physically present. Her hands still go to her face, to instinctively brush the water out of her eyes, finding only cold, dry skin there. She is impervious to the water. It moves through her, like she is a river it can disappear into.

It’s dark here, a sky that looks close to starless, and what a phantom, strange thing that is; Rey chooses to believe the stars are simply obscured by thick rainclouds. The ground under her feet is rocky and rugged, stones pooling with slippery water, and Rey steps carefully, even though she knows she doesn’t really have to. She won’t slip when she is not really here.

Through the storm, Rey squints.

There are very few lights to be found. She can glimpse what looks to be huts. Small stone dwellings, not unlike the shape and size of the stone huts on Ahch-To, though the roofs of these huts are thatched, straw and wood. Dim lights peek out of a few of them, but the majority of the huts are completely dark. Rey wonders if their inhabitants are sleeping, or if they are always empty buildings.

A massive building dominates the space, a domed building, with small annexes jetting out like wings. She can’t see any letters or symbols on the building through the deluge. Rey continues to walk forward, peering at it. The Force, or Beyond Shadows, has brought her here for a reason. There is something here she either needs to see, has been drawn to, or is connected to in some way.

In the dark and the rain, the body nearly blends into the ground.

If Rey were solid, she would have tripped over it.

The body belongs to a teenage Rekk girl, her neon blue skin seemingly glowing in the darkness. Her frozen eyes are a rosy red, a bright color numbed in death. She is sprawled on the ground, like she’s tumbled to her back. A lightsaber lies just out of reach of her thin fingers. A hole, the perfect shape of a lit lightsaber blade, has torn through her chest.

Rey stumbles back with dread, and nearly runs into another body.

It’s a boy, younger than the Rekk girl, perhaps fourteen or fifteen to her seventeen, with dark brown skin and curly brown hair that looks black with the rainwater. He lies on his front, a bit of mud caught on his chin, lightsaber still clutched in his hand. Rey can’t say for sure, but going by their positions, she thinks the Rekk girl was killed while trying to defend the boy.

Rey now knows where she is, and when she is.

It’s Devaron, the site of Luke’s Temple, on the night Bail, Vesper, Lior, Hansa, and Saffron turned to the Dark Side.

There is a loud  _ bang, _ and Rey startles, as the dome of the Temple erupts into bright orange light, a charged explosion going off inside. The fireball lights up the scene, and Rey sees more bodies, almost a dozen, littering the grounds of the Temple. All the bodies have been dealt lethal blows from a lightsaber, and Rey’s heart stutters in horror.

“Bail!”

Rey turns, already knowing what she will see.

Ben is running through the rain.

He’s dressed in a simple gray sleep tunic, darkening every second as it soaks up the falling water, the leggings underneath splattered with mud, his boots only half-tied. Ben is younger than she’s ever seen him, nineteen years old, and though he is technically an adult, in the darkness and the rain and the awfulness before him, he looks like a child. His black hair is flattening to his forehead, and he shoves his bangs out of his eyes, staring in shock at something over Rey’s shoulder.

She turns around.

Bail is there, with Vesper, Lior, Hansa, and Saffron surrounding him. It is strange to see them with the lightsabers they built as Jedi, shades of blue, green, and purple, stark contrasts to the red blades they would carry as Knights of Ren.

Unlike Ben, these teenagers are fully dressed. Their eyes are big, almost manic, bloodlust lighting up their faces.

Ben sprints to them.

“Bail!” Ben shouts. “Bail, what’s happening? Bail--”

He’s gotten closer to them, slowing as he does so, standing near Rey now. She stares at him, taking in his face. How his eyes look black in the dim light. How his skin is sallow, his hands tight in fists.

He knows, Rey realizes. He knows exactly what has happened here.

But he needs Bail to say it.

“Come with me,” Bail says, and he takes a step closer to Ben. They are dressed in identical clothes, likely the sleep clothes uniform of Luke’s Jedi Order, and their hair is the same length.

Two tall, thin boys, standing pale in the dark.

Rey’s heart breaks, watching the horror and despair playing out in Ben’s eyes. She shakes her head, unable to bear it, lifting her hands to her head, burying her face in them, as if not being able to see this will make it stop--

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

The forest around her is lush and green, thick with plantlife. The sunlight overhead is soft, a far cry from the cold rainstorm Rey had just been standing in. She tips her head back, peering up at the thick canopy overhead. It is very quiet in this forest, but she can’t ignore the sense that something is approaching.

A twig snaps.

Rey turns, coming face-to-face with herself.

Her  _ younger _ self. It’s her, five years earlier. Twenty year old Rey, dressed in the tan rags of a Jakku scavenger, stumbling unsteadily through the undergrowth, hand scrabbling for a hold on the lumbering trees around her. In her other hand, she carries the small NN-14 pistol Ben gave her.

Rey smiles, recognizing the forest now.

It’s Takodana, it’s the forest just past Maz Kanata’s castle, on the shores of Nymeve Lake. Rey had run through the forest with BB-8, headed towards the  _ Millennium Falcon, _ while Ben went the other way. It had been Ben’s idea for them to split up, his suggestion that they’d confuse the stormtroopers, giving the Resistance time to meet the attack.

Rey watches as her younger self moves through the forest, struck with surprise by her clear and obvious  _ fear. _ Rey had sprinted through the forest during the battle, her goal in mind being the  _ Falcon _ on the lakeshore. And BB-8 had been with her the entire time, right on her heels.

There is no BB-8 in the green with this Rey.

Only Rey, and her fear.

Younger Rey clambers into a small ravine, mossy rocks on either side. She inches backwards, stepping carefully, determined to not present her exposed back to an attack from the direction she’s come from, like she’s expecting an enemy to be following her. Her lip is trembling.

There is a familiar  _ hissing _ noise, and Rey just about jumps out of her skin, as Younger Rey cries out.

It’s Kylo Ren, masked and caped, striding confidently towards Younger Rey. She wastes no time, immediately firing her blaster at Kylo, who smoothly deflects her lasers with a swaggering ease. He doesn’t speak, only advances.

Younger Rey scrambles out of the ravine, stumbling onto the trail, still firing at Kylo. But there is a hopelessness to her movements now. A sense that this is an ultimately meaningless exercise.

_ Where is Ben? _ Rey wonders, stunned. Why is Kylo  _ here, _ why did he follow Rey, someone he barely knew of, whose interest in her was exclusive to her access to BB-8? Why would he chase her, when the ultimate prize of his brother was so near?

Kylo follows Younger Rey up the ravine. He twirls his spasming red lightsaber, jerking his hand down, and Younger Rey is frozen in place, the Force stilling her.

_ This never happened, _ Rey thinks.

And then she remembers.

_ “As I said, time and reality are illusions,” Feryl says, still quite cheerful. “In Beyond Shadows, everything happens at once. Every universe exists, every outcome can be explored. We saw you choose to come here. We saw you arrive. And we saw you leave.” _

Every universe.

_ “Force vision is when a Jedi gets a vision of the future,” Ben explains. “But it’s only a possibility of a future; not set in stone. The future changes so rapidly we cannot receive a vision of it and think of it as fact. Visions do not come true because we wish or fear them.” He pauses. “The merchant has an interesting perspective. She told me that others who have studied the universe know that we are one of an infinite number, and that at some point, in some universe, the vision will come to pass. The trick is to know in which universe we are.” _

As the merchant on Zakuul posited; every vision is real, because there are an infinite number of universes.

In Beyond Shadows, Rey can see these other universes.

This is one of them. Perhaps this is the universe where Ben ran with BB-8, and Rey went the other way.

She stares, in a rapt and repulsed fascination, as Kylo approaches Other Rey.

“The girl I’ve heard so much about,” he drawls, and Rey’s skin crawls. She’s never heard Bail’s voice through his mask before, and immediately hates the mechanical tone of it. He walks closer, red sword still lit. Other Rey looks at it with pure terror.

_ Where the hell are you, Ben? _ Rey thinks, looking around.

Now would be a really good time for Other Ben to show up.

“The droid,” Kylo prompts. He turns, holding his sword to Other Rey’s throat.  _ “Where is it?” _

“Ben,” Rey whispers, looking around, as her other self trembles, biting her lip furiously under Kylo’s masked glare. “Ben, where are you?”

The forest does not answer.

But speaking of… Where is  _ Bail? _ Present Bail, the Bail who had come to Sinkhole Station with her… He wasn’t with her in the memory of Devaron, and he doesn’t seem to be here on Takodana now.

_ Great, _ Rey thinks.  _ Now I have to find him, too. _

Both Organa-Solo twins.

She turns away from this strange interaction between herself and Kylo on Takodana, taking off to run through the trees.

The forest begins to blur, and disappear. Three-dimensional trees transform to sticks, while the grass shrivels up into dust. A hallucination vanishing before her eyes, as she walks Beyond Shadows.

_ If I was Bail, _ Rey wonders,  _ Where would I go? _

She isn’t sure at all how to even navigate through Beyond Shadows; Feryl had not been forthcoming, and it seems she’s been randomly dropped into scenes from the past and another universe as she arrives. But her goal here is to find the Mirror of Remembrance, to see if she can spot Ben in its glass. And the Mirror seems to be  _ here, _ somewhere…

Rey pauses in her run.

She is surrounded by all white, much like the interior of Sinkhole Station. The Mind Walkers must have modeled the interior after Beyond Shadows itself.

She closes her eyes.

_ Be with me, _ Rey thinks, a common refrain. She reaches out, searching for Ben, searching for Bail, searching for what they might be drawn to in this plane.  _ Be with me. _

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

She is standing on the shore of a beautiful beach. The sea in front of her is an odd, silvery blue, the dark aqua color highlighted by the lighter metallic shade. It is also surprisingly calm for a sea, not that Rey has spent a lot of time around seas. But the waves here are rather gentle, lapping the shore quietly. The sand under her feet looks thick and soft, and Rey wishes she could actually feel it.

She turns her head.

A little ways down the beach, she sees a young woman sitting in the sand. The woman has long brown hair, tied back in a neat plait that falls down her back. She holds a datapad in her hands, reading something, a frown besmirching her round face. A handful of documents are spread out in the sand around her, rocks used as paperweights to hold them down in the face of the sea breeze.

Rey smiles reflexively at the sight. Because it’s Leia.

Leia, who can barely be older than Rey here.

Leia lifts her head, shielding her eyes in the sunlight.

“Hey, hey!” she shouts. “Not so close to the water! Stick to the tidepools, boys!”

Identical groans respond to her call. Leia smiles, returning to her reading.

Rey looks ahead, to where Leia looked.

The boys are very young, she thinks. Rey has not had a lot of experience with children, and isn’t very good at guessing ages, but they look  _ much _ younger than Temiri, Arashell, and Oniho had been when she first met them. She would guess the boys can be no older than four years old.

Their thick black hair has been cut in identical lengths, brushing past their ears and no further. Rey walks a little closer as the boys retreat to the tidepools. One of them picks up a stick, and begins poking it into the calm waters of a pool. The other stretches his hand into the water, brushing the algae under the surface. He pulls his hand out, clutching a handful of seaweed.

“Bail,” Ben says. “Feel this, it’s gross.”

Bail hastens to oblige, scowling at the wet mush in his hand. “Ew.”

Ben smirks, satisfied. He drops the algae back into the pool.

Rey smiles. She watches as the boys play, fearlessly stepping into puddles, uncaring of the saltwater and sea debris that splashes on their clothes. Further away, Leia works, glancing up occasionally to check on her sons, yelling for them to come back closer if they get too far.

“They were cute kids, weren’t they?” Han asks.

Rey’s smile widens, but she doesn’t turn around. “The cutest.”

“A lot of people told us that. I’m sure many of them were saying it to be  _ polite,  _ and I know I’m biased, but c’mon. Look at them. All legs, and angles, and hair.”

Rey laughs. “Ben once told me he was called  _ Limbs _ when he was a child.”

“Kriff, I forgot about that. Poor kid.”

Rey grins, turning around. Han stands just behind her, hands on his hips. He’s also watching the boys play in the sand and tidepools, a wide, contented smile on his face. His appearance surprises Rey; while Leia is young, Han is old here, looking much like he did the last time she saw him, alive on Ilum.

A moment later, it clicks.

“Han,” Rey whispers, and he looks at her.

Like her, he cannot fully interact with the environment, with this memory, this moment in the past. He is also highlighted in light, though his light is blue, like a Force ghost’s. His feet do not touch the sand.

And, like her, the three people in the past, the mother and the two sons; they can’t hear him. But he can hear Rey, and talk to her.

Because he isn’t with them.

He’s with Rey. He’s walking Beyond Shadows.

He  _ winks _ at her.

_ “Han,” _ Rey breathes, and she cannot stop herself from jumping into his arms.

He staggers, laughing a little, as Rey clings to him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck, standing on her tiptoes to reach him. His arms come around her, patting her on the back, as Rey presses her nose into his shoulder, and  _ weeps. _

“Hey, kiddo,” the spirit of Han Solo says, gently. “I know. I know, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

* * *

He leads her away, guiding her down the beach, away from Leia and the boys.

“This is the Silver Sea,” Han explains, gesturing at the ocean. “Hanna City, the capital of Chandrila, was built right on its edge. Ben and Bail were born here. We used to take them to play on the beach. There was always something for them to get into in the sand, or the sea, once they learned to swim.”

“Is this your memory, then?” Rey asks.

The two of them walk closely together. Rey is afraid Han might disappear if he strays too far.

“No,” Han says. “No, I wasn’t… I don’t know where I was on this day. Probably screwing around somewhere in the Outer Rim with Chewie. Leia and I did that a lot; we’d switch off with the boys. If Leia had meetings off-world, then I’d be sure to stick around Chandrila. And then she’d come back, and I’d go. But I never had anywhere I  _ needed _ to go… It was all wanderlust.”

He says  _ wanderlust _ like it’s an ugly swear. Rey doesn’t need the Force to feel Han’s regret.

“But, this place… It lets you see the past,” Han says, gesturing around them when he says  _ this place. _ “So I get to see these moments with Leia and the boys, and I get to pretend I was there with them. This one is one of my favorites.”

“Do you know where you are, Han?” Rey asks, making the same gesture.

Han shrugs. “The Netherworld, I’d guess.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Rey says. “This is a separate plane, like a… a halfway place, between the living universe and the Netherworld.”

Han stares at her.

“I suppose that makes sense,” he muses, hand running along the curve of his chin in thought, brushing over the bristly gray stubble there. “I’ve never… Well. I haven’t run into anyone who could hear and talk to me before.”

It is Rey’s turn to stare.  _ “Never?” _

“Nope,” Han says, shrugging. “Hey, don’t look so shocked. It hasn’t…”

He trails off.

“Rey,” Han says, carefully. “How long has it been?”

She swallows unnecessarily, and doesn’t need to ask for clarification. “Five years, Han.”

Han stops on the beach.

He stares out over the silver-blue ocean, his light brown eyes wide and distant. Rey remains at his side, studying his face anxiously, wringing her hands together. She has no idea what to do, or say. It is painfully clear to her that Han had no idea he’d been dead for five whole years.

“Kriff,” Han murmurs.

“How long did you think it’d been?” Rey wonders.

“A month, maybe,” Han says, shaking his head.

Rey recalls the emaciated appearances of the Mind Walkers, Feryl’s comments that they’ve been known to accidentally starve while walking Beyond Shadows. A lack of good timekeeping would certainly compound that.

Han sighs.

“When I saw you here, all… glowy,” Han says, turning back to Rey, gesturing at her white-lit form, “I knew you weren’t dead, because you weren’t like me. And then I assumed you were just doing some… Some Force walking thing.”

“Force walking?” Rey repeats, fighting a smile.

Han scowls. “You know what I mean. Something about the Force I don’t know.”

“Sure.”

“Why are you here, Rey?” Han wonders. “If it’s been five years, and you aren’t dead…”

His voice quiets, slips away. He suddenly looks young, impossibly young, with the way his entire expression falls, the way his mouth goes slack. He stares at Rey, eyes wide and pleading, and the grief rocks through Rey again, like it’s brand new.

“Ben’s dead,” Rey whispers, and feels the words leave her like the sound of scratching metal on metal. “He died about five days ago.”

She is wearing the clothes she is dressed in on Sinkhole Station, so she goes to her neck, tugging the gold die out from under her shirt, showing it to Han.

Han staggers, taking the beach, the sea, with him.

* * *

They are back in the empty white space.

Han sits there, on the endless white floor, looking like his entire world has ended. Rey kneels next to him.

“It was very quick,” she whispers, thinking back to the quiet condolences she has witnessed being given on Ajan Kloss over the years, thinking of what the loved ones ask, thinking of what she would like to be told if she had not been with Ben at the moment of his death. “He saved us all. It was an evil Sith artifact, called the Darkstaff. I don’t fully understand it, but I think… I think it was just  _ Ben. _ His light and his warmth. He smothered the dark. And he… The effort took too much out of him.”

Han buries his face in his hands.

“My boy,” he whispers, and Rey cannot bear to hear it. She pushes on.

“The First Order surrendered,” Rey continues. “Most of the stormtroopers defected. The Darkstaff was holding up the military--”

“And Bail?”

Han’s voice is so quiet that even in this completely empty, still place, Rey nearly misses it.

“Alive,” Rey says. “He helped us. He stood with Ben again, when it counted. He’s actually here with me, Beyond Shadows. He came with me. We’re going to find Ben here and bring him back.”

“Ben’s here?” Han asks, looking up. “And Bail? Both of them?”

Rey nods. “I told you. Halfway place. I guess… I guess at some point, Ben might go too far, and end up in the Netherworld. And that’s when… When we won’t get him back.”

She bites her lip, emotion surging again.

Han wipes his eyes. “And Leia?”

“She’s okay,” Rey says. “Being strong, leading the Resistance, and now a burgeoning republic, I guess…”

“That’s my girl,” Han murmurs, smiling, and Rey can’t help but mirror him. “How about you, kiddo?”

She’d almost forgotten that, how Han had called her  _ kiddo. _ Ben was always  _ kid, _ the word coming out of Han naturally, causing his son to roll his eyes, but smile nonetheless. But Rey had been  _ kiddo. _

She’d missed that.

“Aside from… You know,” Rey says, gesturing around at the white space, the reason she is here in the first place. Han does not make her say it. “I’m good. Ben trained me to become a Jedi, and I’m a Master now. I have an apprentice named Jannah. And… And Ben asked me to marry him a couple weeks ago, and I said yes.”

“How about that,” Han says, grinning now. “That’s good, Rey. That’s real good. My kid was smitten with you from the start.”

Rey scoffs, and Han shakes his head.

“I’m serious,” he continues. “I saw the way he looked at you. Ben was always quiet about things, but his eyes would give him away.”

“Yes,” Rey says, softly.

How many times has she looked at Ben, at his dark eyes? How many times has she felt him watching her from across a room? How many times has she searched him out, looking for that flash of brown?

Han picks up on her grief easily enough.

“You’re here for Ben,” he summarizes, “And Bail is here, too. Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know,” Rey admits. “This place… It’s hard for us to understand it, exactly. How it works. My guess is we got separated on our way in. I saw… I ended up back the night the Temple burned on Devaron.”

In retrospect, Rey is surprised Bail hadn’t been there as well. Wasn’t his big regret leaving Ben at that moment? Wouldn’t he have been drawn there?

_ What does Bail want? _ Rey wonders.

He wants Ben, alive again. He wants power. He wants to be respected.

Suddenly, Han gets to his feet. He extends a hand to Rey, who stares up at him.

“I think I know a place where Bail will be,” Han says.

* * *

Han is better able to traverse Beyond Shadows than Rey is, and she isn’t surprised by this at all. He’s spent five standard years wandering this realm, to the point he can easily reach the memories and events he’d like to rewatch. Rey follows him eagerly, holding onto his arm as they walk.

It’s like walking in space.

Everything is light, everything glows. Rey gets flashes of faces and worlds out of the corners of her eyes, but they’re gone when she turns her head to look. The air here feels oddly thick, and she wonders if that’s because there really isn’t any air at all. She is still inside her physical body on Sinkhole Station. It is simply her mind that has wandered far.

“I’ve been thinking,” Han says.

“I hope so,” Rey replies, automatically, smiling at Han’s scowl.

“Watch it, kiddo,” he says, but there is no malice. Just affection. For the first time since Ben died, Rey’s heart feels warm. “I’ve been thinking about where it all went wrong. With Bail, I mean. And maybe Ben, too. Somewhere down the line, I made Ben think he couldn’t come home after Bail fell to the Dark Side. I made him think the only option was to run, and that could be because that was about the only thing he ever saw me do.”

Rey’s smile falls. “Han…”

“Look, I know,” Han continues. “I know what you’ll say, you’ll say he did it because it seemed like the safest option, and hell… Maybe that’s a good reason. But at the end of the day, it was my kid deciding to be the adult in our situation, and disappearing into the galaxy.”

She has no words to contradict that.

“As for Bail…” Han sighs. “Leia and I told ourselves that it was okay for us to leave the boys alone because they had each other. Ben had Bail, Bail had Ben. They weren’t really  _ alone. _ But maybe that… Maybe that forced them to rely on each other more than they should have. If the other was their only ever constant, then when Bail fell and Ben ran, it… It changed them. For good. And maybe, if Leia and I had been around more, they would have had more to fall back on. A support system, a family  _ identity, _ that was more than a brother.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Rey says, forcefully, thinking of Bail’s words to her in the jail on Coruscant, his professed lack of regret. She thinks of all she has learned in the last five years, about choice, and love, and grief. “Some things are always inevitable, Han.”

Han looks at her, studying her face.

“You’ve grown up, Rey,” he says, quietly.

“It’s been a long five years.”

“But you’re happy, aren’t you? Aside from why you’re here, of course.”

Rey doesn’t even have to think of it. Even with the war, the horror, the bloodshed and the despair--

She has a home. She has a family. 

“Yes,” she murmurs. “I’m happy.”

* * *

Eventually, the whiteness begins to abate. Rey’s grip on Han’s arm tightens, turning ironclad.

“The thing about Bail,” Han says, “is he’s very curious. He’s also ambitious. It often felt like I was raising Leia. They have a lot in common. That raw power, that anger, that stubbornness and determination…”

Rey nods in agreement. “But Ben is your son.”

Bail is the son of Leia Organa, and the grandson of Anakin Skywalker. And Ben is the son of Han Solo, and the grandson of Padmé Naberrie Amidala.

A family tree, burned down by greed and rage and sorrow and grace.

“Yeah,” Han murmurs. “He is.”

Shapes begin to appear before them. Rey squints as the white haze darkens, creating outlines. A ceiling forms, moving in an arc, giving it a cave-like appearance. Tiles appear under Rey’s feet, smooth dark tiles of stone. The cave expands, widening, and Rey sees she is standing in a grotto, an old one, with moss and lichen growing on the damp walls.

Ahead of them, in the back of the grotto, lies a dark pool.

The pool is shaped in a perfect circle. The water is completely still and dark, no sunlight to refract off its calm surface. There is nothing remarkable about it, as far as Rey can tell.

A figure stands in front of the pool, hands clasped neatly behind his back, as he stands straight-backed and tall. The figure turns around, and it’s Bail.

Rey is startled by him here. For one thing, the scar that bisects his face has disappeared. She wonders if it’s because they’re only minds in this place, and there was no reason for an unnatural addition to his normal appearance to exist here.

But more than that; he feels different, in Beyond Shadows.

That biting cold has lessened, somewhat. He is still colder than Ben, but now, he is temperate. He is a field of tall grass, swaying gently in the chilled breeze. He is the cool sea lapping against bare feet on a gray shore. He is the soft glow of moonlight slipping through a partially open bedroom window.

Bail’s eyes are locked on the ghost of his father.

“Hey, son,” Han says.

Bail is very still. Rey isn’t sure he’s breathing. Han steps closer, fearlessly, casually, like the last time he’d done so hadn’t ended with Bail’s sword in his chest. Han tucks his hands in his trouser pockets, making a show of surveying the pool.

“Neat,” he says.

“It’s…” Bail clears his throat, glancing at Rey. “It’s the Pool of Knowledge. Drinking from the pool allegedly gives you the full knowledge of the past and future.”

“Have you drunk from it?” Rey demands.

“No.”

He says it calmly, simply.  _ No. _ Rey stares.

“I did look into it,” he adds. “To see the Throne.”

The Throne of Balance, Rey recalls. Seek had told them it could be viewed in the surface of the Pool, its reflection visible there.

“Who was on the Throne?” Rey asks, curious.

Bail’s mouth purses. “You should look for yourself.”

Neither Seek nor Feryl had cautioned against looking into the Pool and seeing the Throne, and its prediction of the future. Rey approaches the Pool carefully, dropping to her knees as she reaches the edge. She grasps the edge of the pool tightly; she is not afraid of Bail pushing her in. She knows he wouldn’t.

She simply needs something to hold onto.

Rey leans forward, and looks into the Pool of Knowledge.

* * *

_ The Throne of Balance is massive. It is all tall, black stone, reminiscent of obsidian, but with an odd metallic sheen to it. It is terrifyingly intimidating, and Rey feels her body shiver at the simple sight of it. To sit in the Throne is to exemplify a dangerous sort of power. _

_ No one sits on the Throne. _

_ Instead, two young children sit in front of the Throne. They are playing some sort of game with their hands, involving counting and trying to hit the other’s hands before time can run out. One of the children, the older one, is a boy, with a head of thick dark hair and a button nose. The younger child is a girl, with long chestnut-colored hair, and big brown eyes. And Rey knows that hair color, she sees it everyday… And she knows those eyes, she sees them in Leia, and-- _

_ The children look up suddenly, as if called. In unison, they begin to laugh, squealing with excitement and joy, little hands stretched upwards as a woman approaches them. She’s smiling, dressed in white trousers and loose white shirt, her chestnut hair braided neatly, dangling over one shoulder. She kneels next to them, and points to the side, and the babbling starts anew again, as a man dressed in dark clothes joins the three of them, coming from the other direction. _

_ His smile is just as wide as theirs, distorting the long scar that runs down the right side of his face-- _

* * *

Rey tears her gaze out of the Pool, stumbling backward. Hands drop to her shoulders: Han and Bail, steadying her.

“Rey?” Han asks, frowning, but Rey is already on her feet.

She turns on Bail, jabbing her finger forward, dangerously close to his chest.

_ “No,” _ she snarls, and he raises his hands in a defensive gesture.

“Look, it doesn’t make sense to me either--”

“Those were--” and Rey gasps, hiccuping with the shock, “--Those were _our_ _children.”_

The boy, with her nose and Bail’s hair. The girl, with Bail’s eyes and Rey’s hair. The children were young, and small, but Rey could recognize those features amidst their baby fat and cheeky grins. And more than that, she could easily recognize Bail, with his longer hair and the scar she had once put on him running over his face.

“I saw them, too,” Bail murmurs. He looks deeply disturbed, running a hand through his hair. “But you have to  _ calm down, _ Rey. You’ll wake yourself up if you don’t.”

He’s right, and Rey knows it. She turns away, looking to the decrepit wall of the grotto, pressing her hand to her mouth, breathing through her nose. Bail and Han speak in low voices behind her, and she closes her eyes, trying to block them out.

_ What does it mean? _ Rey wonders, but she knows what it means. The vision couldn’t have been clearer.

It was her, and Bail, and their two children.

Nausea and horror compete in her stomach.

She feels a gentle hand on her shoulder, and forces herself to relax, recognizing Han’s touch.

“Kiddo,” he says, gently. “You okay?”

Rey shakes her head, but turns around, pulling herself together. For his part, Bail looks stricken, his spine stiff.

“I hoped you’d see something different,” he says, quietly.

“It’s impossible,” Rey spits. “That future. It won’t ever happen.”

“I agree,” Bail says, quickly. “And the future can change, we know that. Didn’t Seek say he saw Snoke on the Throne? Well, Snoke’s not on it anymore, and it changed. This doesn’t have to be definite.”

Han looks between Rey and Bail, frowning, but thankfully doesn’t comment.

“It  _ won’t _ be definite,” Rey growls. 

Bail nods. “Yeah. Can we get back to the real issue at hand?”

Rey is pretty sure she has a very real issue in this future where she has children with Bail, but understands the need to prioritize on the immediate future.

“Right,” she says, clasping her hands. “Right. Han. Do you know where the Lake of Apparitions is?”

“The what?”

“It’s a large lake,” Bail says, looking at his father unflinchingly, and Rey allows herself a perverse feeling of pleasure at how uncomfortable Bail must be. “Gray. With a lot of fog over it.”

Han rubs a hand over his chin. “Uh. Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Rey groans.  _ “Han. _ You’ve been here for  _ five years. _ It sounds like you were just wandering around that whole time, and you’re telling me you can’t--”

“Hey, I wasn’t just  _ wandering.” _

“Then  _ what _ were you doing?” Bail interjects, scowling.

“I was trying to bring you and Ben back together!”

Silence falls, as Han and Bail stare at each other, and Rey stares at them. It’s eerily quiet, with the still pool and lack of air movement, and the silence is almost overwhelming.

“What do you mean?” Bail asks.

Han sighs. “Look, I don’t… I don’t get how the Force works, but I’ve been… I’ve been looking for places where it feels… What’s the word… Liminal.”

“Liminal,” Bail repeats.

“Yeah. Like… Like I’m not as far away from the galaxy as I might be otherwise. I’ve come across these pockets a few times, and I’ve just… Luke used to talk about how he’d hear the voices of Old Ben, and  _ Yoda, _ every now and then, when he was just minding his own business, or meditating. And I thought I’d give it a shot. I was trying to get you and Ben to hear me, and I was trying to get you both to want to go to the other.”

A strange feeling, a mix of shock and euphoria, grasps Rey.

“Han,” she says, slowly, “Describe these moments to us, please.”

Han shrugs. “I dunno. Most of the time, nothing would happen. I’d be… Reaching, that’s how Leia used to describe it, when she would feel the twins inside her. I’d try to do that. Probably more  _ literally _ than I should. But every now and then, it was… It was strange. It was like… It was like I could feel them, the boys. Like they were responding to me. And so I’d just… Just try and push them out to the other.”

Han gestures as he does this, putting his hands against his chest, and then pushing away, from Rey to Bail, describing the movement.

Bail looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm.

Rey wants to  _ guffaw. _

“How many times,” she whispers, “Did it feel like they were responding?”

Han frowns. “Uh… Only seven, er six times. Real recently too. I mean, that’s hard to say, but--”

“NO.”

The exclamation comes from Bail, who puts his hands on his head, and bends in half, pressing his face to his knees. Rey staggers backward, hands clasped over her mouth. But she cannot help it. She begins to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

“Oh,  _ gods,” _ Rey gasps. “It was  _ you. _ The whole time, Han, it was  _ you!” _

“What was me?” Han echoes, bewildered.

“Ben and Bail have been switching bodies for the last few weeks,” Rey explains. Bail continues to take deep, even breaths against his legs. “We could never figure it out, how it was happening…”

She begins to reevaluate.

They had thought that pleasure was the key, that it was this idea of pleasure and the Force that was compelling the switch.

“It started on your thirtieth birthdays,” Rey whispers, looking at Bail, who crouches on the ground now. “And Ben was thinking about Han so much that night, of course he was…”

“I was too,” Bail murmurs. Han stares.

“That must have started it,” Rey says.

The twins, both thinking of their dead father, on a milestone birthday.

“And then… Then, we were on the  _ Falcon,” _ Rey continues. “And Ben was going through bins of stuff, things, looking for anything for Jannah’s lightsaber. And the  _ Falcon… _ of all the things, the places in the galaxy, nothing reminds Ben more of Han than that ship.”

Because the unique smell of the  _ Falcon _ \--the rust, mildew, dust, oil, gasoline--is inextricably tied to Ben’s childhood memories of his father.

Memory is tied to smell like nothing else.

“And Ben was cooking Fried Endorian chicken,” Rey says, thinking of the smell of the frying meat, that recipe Han and Leia had picked up after their wedding, the recipe and food that would remind him of them. “And then he was inside the  _ Falcon, _ and trying to fix it, and the  _ smell, _ the smell of fuel and metal… And then he was showing me that Marksman remote he and Bail used to practice with, and he told me how you, Han, would laugh and laugh when they got zapped, and they’d run over to you and you’d get zapped too…”

How many stories has Rey heard of Han, tying him to these small moments? How many times has Ben expressed grief over his dead father? How many times has Ben found comfort in the Force, the knowledge Han Solo had never truly left his son?

_ No one’s ever really gone, _ Rey thinks, and it has never been truer.

Han Solo would reach out from the beyond to his sons. He would try to bring them back together, knowing, now, how their separation had changed them both so much. He played their game to do so, working with the Force, this thing he didn’t understand… Compelling them to be thrown together, by his awkward and confused effort.

Han Solo’s last con.

“Oh,” Han says, mouth parted. “Huh. Never knew the Force could do that.”

“That’s not…” Bail jerks to his feet. “It  _ can’t! That’s not how the Force works!” _

Han smirks. “Guess it does.”

“There is one instance I don’t really understand,” Rey says, before Bail can commit patricide a second time, “When we were on Yavin IV, and Ben was meditating with his lightsaber, and showing Temiri. I’m not sure how that moment could have reminded him of Han.”

Han looks at her, confusion creating a line between his eyebrows.

To her surprise, it is Bail who has an answer.

“That’s because Ben wasn’t thinking of Han for that switch,” he murmurs. “I was.”

* * *

The Pool of Knowledge and its dark grotto slips away.

They are back on the beach by the Silver Sea. Bail and Ben, young and free, play in the tidepools. Leia sits a short distance away, reading a report.

“You used to fly us everywhere,” Bail murmurs. He stares out over the sea, but it is obvious to Rey and Han that he’s speaking to Han. Rey thinks this is a private moment she shouldn’t be a part of, but she can’t afford to lose Bail in Beyond Shadows. She takes a few steps back, giving them the illusion of privacy. “And you showed us the  _ cool _ things. You took us to the Maw, and the Ring of Kafrene. And you showed us Belgoth’s Beacon, and the Space City near Nepsis VIII, and the rainbow storms on Yavin IV. And… And the craters on Tasariq, the underground rapid-transit tube that tied the three craters together to create the civilization of that planet.”

Han watches Bail, who still hasn’t looked at him.

“When I was in the asteroid belt, looking for the Darkstaff, I thought of that, and I thought of you,” he whispers, like it pains him to say the words. Rey suspects it really does. “I thought of how, when I had a question about something strange or foreign or unknown, you’d be the first person I’d ask. How you never had a proper education, but you were just as knowledgeable as… as Mom. And that was… That was something I admired about you.”

_ Because Bail, _ Rey thinks,  _ always wants to be the best. _

The most powerful, the most dangerous. The smartest, the fastest. The best Sith, the best Knight of Ren.

Han stares at his son, clearly surprised.

“Bail,” he says, quietly, and Bail shudders. “Bail. Look at me.”

Slowly… so slowly it seems to take an age, Bail does. He turns to face the father, and Rey sees how close in height they are, how similar their noses are, how the cuts of their jaws mirror the other’s. Bail’s hair is longer, but Han’s is reminiscent of the waves in his son’s dark hair.

“There you are,” Han murmurs, smiling. “There’s my boy. My son. I’ve missed you so much.”

Bail shakes his head, his lips clenched so tightly they’re white. Han reaches forward, and touches his face. Bail gasps a breath.

“You told me once it was too late,” Han continues. “Too late for you to come home. But Bail… Here you are. Ben has always been your home, and you’re here, trying to save him. And  _ that… _ That was all I ever wanted for you boys. I wanted you to always be able to rely on each other. The true cost of that was me making you both feel like I didn’t need you two as well.”

Rey’s heart aches, breaking at the grief, the regret and the miscommunication that has injured the three Solo men. That stained their connections with each other.

How obvious it is to Rey, how obvious it has always been to her, that Han and Bail and Ben always craved the others’ presences. 

“Dad,” Bail croaks, and he stares at Han with watery brown eyes. “I don’t… I don’t know if I’m going to be able to save him.”

Han smiles. “You do know, Bail. Because it’s never been a choice for you.”

Bail shudders. His hand reaches up, to touch Han’s. They stand there, father and son, lit in light, in this halfway place. Perhaps the first time they’ve ever truly been able to meet each other halfway, as strange and difficult and frustrating as they have found the other.

“Dad,” Bail whispers, and seems to lose his voice.

“I know,” Han says, rescuing him. “I forgave you the second you did it. And I love you too, son.”

Tears spill down Rey’s face.

Han looks at her, and smirks.

“When you see Ben,” he says, “Tell him hi from me. And tell him I was right.”

“About what?” Rey asks.

Han’s smirk deepens. “Everything.”

The ocean seems to rise up all at once, blinding light surrounding them. She throws up her arms instinctively.

Han Solo, lifelong wanderer, father with unfinished business, finally goes to the Netherworld to rest.

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

The beach is gone, the Silver Sea, the memory of the young children and the mother watching over them.

Endless space is all Rey can see ahead.

Bail stands at her side, looking like he’s been hit by a speeder. He trembles, his lip quivering. Tears spill down his pale face.

Unable to help herself, she reaches forward, and takes his hand.

“Bail,” Rey whispers. “It’s time to find Ben.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate chapter title: Han Solo's Last Con.
> 
> Luke did say he hadn't been able to find Han in the Netherworld.
> 
> Han is responsible for the switchings between Ben and Bail, in a roundabout, somewhat accidental way. He's entirely untrained and not Force sensitive, relying on the secondhand knowledge he gleaned from his wife, Luke, and his sons. He wanted to try and bring his sons together, and the Force answered with a pretty literal response.
> 
> The first switching was actually on Snoke's dreadnought, when Ben reached for Bail and Rey, and ended up in Bail's head, with "There is no pain, there is grace." The catalyst of that one was Bail in the same position with Rey as he'd been when he killed Han, saying the same words.
> 
> I never used the iconic "That's not how the Force works!" line from TFA, so glad to bring it in here now.
> 
> As always, with this series: Not all visions come true.


	28. For My Other Half

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The sun will keep you safe."

Rey and Bail walk through the universe.

They walk closely together, holding hands. Rey thinks if the situation was different, even _slightly_ different, as in no reunion with Han, that Bail wouldn’t be caught dead holding her hand. But he needs her now, just as she needs him in this place, Beyond Shadows. He needs the tether. He needs to know he is not lost; or, at least, not lost and alone.

Rey can do that much for him.

She needs him to not disappear.

Without clear guidance from Han on their next locale, Rey and Bail decide to just move forward. The whiteness rises, and abates, a pearly white sea with no end in sight. They spot glimpses of scenes, a blink-and-you-miss-it shot of a forest, and then an ocean, and then a swirl of brown hair, and then a flash of dark brown eyes. Whenever they turn, chasing these images, they find only endless space.

They can hear things too, occasionally. In many ways, these whispers are the worst.

_“Don’t be afraid.”_

_“Am I not my brother’s keeper?”_

_“All the way.”_

_“I love you. I can’t help it.”_

_“Stars die all the time, Ben.”_

_“No one’s ever really gone.”_

_“I think I am what I was always meant to be.”_

_“My love, please forgive me.”_

_Ben,_ Rey thinks, searching the openness blindly. Bail’s hand is cold in hers, his fingers wrapped tightly around hers, clinging to Rey with a desperation Rey understands. His eyes are haunted, as he looks around the space, the swirling nothingness.

_“Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to.”_

_“You and me.”_

_“I want to be able to forgive my choices.”_

_“Be brave, Bail.”_

_“You are your own best thing.”_

_Ben,_ Rey thinks.

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

The bedroom on Ajan Kloss is a mess. Two knapsacks lie on the floor, mostly full, sleeves and socks sticking out. Four lightsabers rest on the rickety table. A large plexisteel box dominates the bed in the center of the room, with Rey and Ben leaning over it, forcing it closed, encasing the ancient texts within.

It is so recently, when Rey and Ben were packing for Coruscant, in their room on the Resistance base.

Bail stares at his brother, emotion and grief obvious in his slack jaw and tense shoulders. Rey realizes this is the first time he’s seen Ben since the Temple on Coruscant. It’s the first time Bail has seen Ben in a domestic setting in… over a decade, Rey imagines.

He stares, and stares.

“What are you doing?” Bail asks, voice soft.

“Packing,” Rey murmurs.

She watches as Past Rey hands Ben yet another text, causing Ben to groan dramatically, throwing his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Past Rey laughs, rolling her eyes, elbowing Ben out of the way to fit the text into the box.

“Packrat,” Ben says, but it is all fondness, all unbridled affection.

Rey’s heart aches at the sound.

“You’ve missed one,” Bail says.

Rey glances at him. “What?”

Bail points to the side. Half-hidden under a discarded sweater is a most familiar text: _Ways of the Cosmic Force._

“We don’t send it to Yavin IV,” Rey says, dismissively. “Ben will pack it with his things.”

Obviously. This same text is currently in Sinkhole Station, along with Rey and Bail’s bodies. It’s probably being picked through by Seek, or another Mind Walker.

Past Rey and Ben manage to slam the box lid shut.

Bail looks at Ben’s bag. “Looks pretty packed to me.”

In the past, Ben is scowling at the massive Sith sword, leaning against the wall. Bail hovers near it, studying the Sith sword with an intrigued expression, a stark contrast to his twin’s disgust.

 _Ways of the Cosmic Force_ remains on the table.

“I don’t want to leave it here,” Ben says, nodding at the Sith sword. Past Rey sits next to him on the bed, one arm resting on the closed box, ready for Temiri on Yavin IV. “In case the First Order comes calling. But I don’t want to take it with us either. The last thing we need is the Darkstaff in the proximity of another Sith relic.” 

Rey looks at the text, and she looks at her past self.

“We could hide it?” Past Rey suggests, frowning at the Sith sword. “Somewhere in the jungle?”

Rey looks at the text.

_“So, what, free will doesn’t exist?” Bail asks._

_Feryl smiles his eerie, bony grin. “Oh, it does. You’ve simply already made every choice you will ever make.”_

Without thinking too much about it, relying only on the sense of surety and relief that had allowed Ben to hear her from Beyond Shadows, Rey marches to the half-hidden text. She lifts her right arm, and she watches as the white light that surrounds it disappears. It leaves her skin feeling odd, feeling prickly, similar to a static shock.

And she knows, if Past Rey and Ben were to look over, they would see her disembodied hand.

But they don’t. They didn’t, they don’t, they won’t.

Rey pushes _Ways of the Cosmic Force_ off the table, sending it to the floor with a soft _thunk._

She yanks her arm back, covering it in white light again, as Past Rey and Ben spin around at the noise.

“Kriff, I almost forgot,” Ben says, and he gets to his feet. He walks across the room, and bends, picking up the text from the floor. This motion brings him within a hairbreadth’s distance from Rey. She stares up at him, biting her lip hard.

 _Be with me,_ Rey thinks, an instinct.

But she does not give into it. She never did. She won’t now.

This has all already happened. It won’t be changed.

Past Rey and Ben are talking, as Ben goes to his rucksack, and shoves the text inside it. Bail stares at his brother, as if Rey, both Reys, are not in the room. Ben sits on the bed next to Past Rey, and takes her hand.

“This won’t be the last time you’ll be here,” he whispers.

Past Rey bites her lip, exhaling loudly. “Don’t think I didn’t catch how smoothly you excluded yourself from that otherwise comforting statement.”

Ben smirks. “You caught me.”

She reaches out, taking his hands in hers. Their eyes are drawn to the ring on her finger, the Alderaanian bracelet on his wrist. Symbols of the future they are fighting to reach.

Two symbols Rey now wears herself, all alone.

Rey cannot bear it. 

She walks to Bail, and takes his hand, and closes her eyes.

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

The white nothingness greets her.

Bail looks at Rey, guarded, and nearly masked.

“We were so in love,” Rey whispers, as cold tears stream down her face, the grief fresh and raw. She stares into the open space, wishing that the memory of Ben holding her hand and thinking of their future is not branded on her eyes. “We were so in love, and the galaxy, it… It asked too much of us.”

And this is not unique to the story of Rey and Ben. It is the tale of so many star-crossed lovers, people who wanted so little and were forced to sacrifice so much. It is the tale of Padmé Naberrie Amidala and Anakin Skywalker, the tale of Leia Organa and Han Solo. It is the gritty undercurrent of cosmic love.

“I…”

Rey turns, looking at Bail. He’s struggling to speak, staring down at the nothingness below them. Rey has never seen him so lost for words before.

“I don’t… get it,” Bail manages. “I don’t understand what you and Ben have, and… I have long thought that love is a weakness, because it… I believed it was of the Light, and I believed it only ever led to heartbreak and grief, and I…”

He seems to be warring with himself, or something else Rey cannot see.

“But to watch Ben, then,” Bail continues, “I saw… I saw him as I’ve never known him. And I saw how, even with his fear about what was coming, what would happen to him, how he… His first instinct was to comfort you, to offer you solace, and _that…_ _That_ is Ben. That’s Ben at his best. My brother is…”

Bail stares into the expanse beyond.

“Ben is a lot of things, but he is not weak,” Bail says, sharply. “He is the strongest person I know. And I get that now, I really do, I see how Ben’s strength has always lied in his magnificent capacity to _love,_ and… And I am _ashamed.”_

“Why are you ashamed?” Rey asks.

“Because I didn’t figure that out,” Bail whispers. “And you told me that. You fucking told me, Rey. You told me that Ben could never fall to the Dark Side because it simply wasn’t in him. And I didn’t believe you, and I misunderstood, and I placed the blame of our separation on Ben, when it wasn’t Ben’s fault.”

Bail is gutted, a drowning man taking in his last sight of the shore. He trembles in this halfway place. Rey clutches his hand in hers, suddenly afraid that he will disappear.

“You know, Bail,” Rey murmurs, thoughtful. “I’m not sure it was entirely your fault, either.”

He stares at her. There is something forlorn and lonely in his dark eyes. Pure desperation. A cry for mercy.

The voices speak around them again.

_“There is no pain, there is grace.”_

_“Please tell my brother that I say hello, and he needs to be kind to you.”_

_“Breathe. Just, breathe.”_

_“I think I would have found you, in any life, in any universe.”_

_“The sun will keep you safe.”_

_Ben,_ Rey thinks, and she reaches.

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

The desert stretches in all directions, an oasis of despair and thirst. The sands glow in the harsh sunlight, browns stained orange with the red hot glow of the heat. The sky is a pale blue blur, utterly cloudless, unusually still. In the distance, the Graveyard of the Giants looms, beckoning weary scavengers with their funereal parts.

Shuffling noises make Rey turn around. Bail, the dark shadow at her side, copies her movement.

A little girl struggles through the sands. She’s dragging a flat slab of metal behind her, various bits of machinery and tech stacked precariously on top of it. The girl walks with her head down, sweat dripping off her ruddy skin, darkening her light shirt and wraps with moisture. Her hair is tied back in an odd, three-bun style.

Rey’s heart beats frantically in her chest.

“Ben,” she whispers.

She shields her eyes against the Jakku sun, and turns on the spot, staring in all directions. This is the memory; this is the moment. 

This is the past, where the girl of the wastelands was told a promise, a promise she kept close to her chest, a promise that would sustain her for fifteen years until she met the man who made it to her.

 _He must be coming,_ Rey thinks. She scans the horizon, hope and joy spasming in her chest like two trapped birds.

Bail stands quietly at her side.

The wind blows more harshly across the sand. The little girl cries out, and drops to her knees. Rey stares, horrified, watching her younger self fall apart.

“Ben,” Rey whispers. “Ben, where are you?”

Little Rey weeps in the desert.

“Come back,” Little Rey whispers, bereft and grief stricken. _“Come back.”_

Bail issues a long breath out of his nose. Rey startles as he steps forward, approaching the crying child, staring down at her with the same expression he’d just worn in the white mass of Beyond Shadows.

The expression of someone seeking mercy.

The Force shudders suddenly, something slipping out of joint. Rey watches as Bail’s form loses its spasming white light, until he is just a man standing in the Jakku desert, looming above the weeping child. 

He is temperate on Jakku, now. He is the balm to the scorching heat. He is the rare cloud in the arid sky that offers the little girl some peace. He is the first act of kindness the abandoned child has ever known.

She stares, as Bail bends down, placing a palm tenderly on the back of the girl’s head, cupping two of the little buns styled there. She stares, as Bail presses a kiss to the little girl’s forehead, quelling her weeping, as she trembles with the shock of human touch, after her abandonment.

“The sun will keep you safe,” Bail whispers.

Little Rey blinks up into the harsh sunlight as Bail stands, turning his head to look at Rey, who gawks at him from Beyond Shadows. With the way his head is turned, the little girl in the desert is only able to pick out a silhouette, a pale hand, long fingers.

The little girl blinks, dazed but consoled.

Bail steps back into Beyond Shadows, and shrugs at Rey.

“I told you,” he murmurs. “Ben was the better twin, and I am just a poor excuse for him. That’s still true. But I think… My brother showed me mercy, and forgiveness, in the Temple of the Jedi. And more than that, you once showed me compassion, too. So, I could do something for him… But it’s just as important to me, I think, to do something kind for you. And for that to happen, you needed Ben. You needed Ben’s presence. And I… I am no sun, but I am--”

“Familiar,” Rey whispers.

The Force seems to take a deep breath, and Jakku slips away. 

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

The skies of Takodana are overwhelmed by carnage. X-wings zip through the air, trailing screaming TIE fighters, as lasers from both ships are sent into the stone walls that were once part of Maz Kanata’s castle. Squads of stormtroopers spill out of transports, while civilians crawl out of the debris, and the Resistance approaches over the lake.

In the forest, Rey stills, BB-8 just ahead of her.

 _Where do we go?_ BB-8 asks, as the _Millennium Falcon_ is not where it was said to be, is not where it was supposed to be. As Ben said it was. 

“I…” Younger Rey starts, and shakes her head.

Beyond Shadows, Rey and Bail watch the scene unfold.

They watch as Younger Rey stiffens, eyes widening. The movement signals the return of Ben Organa-Solo to the Force, after a six year absence.

“I recognized him right away,” Rey whispers. Bail studies her. “He told me I was bright, and I didn’t fully understand what that meant, but I believed him. And then he opened himself back to the Force, to get your attention, and I felt him, and… He was _warm._ A good warm. And for me, twenty years old, fresh off fifteen years on Jakku… The only good kind of warm is a cool warmth.”

A smile stretches over Younger Rey’s face.

“And it was Ben I was feeling, of course,” Rey adds, eyes locked on her past self. “And maybe, if I understood the Force, and Force signatures, I would have been able to pick out the tiny difference. Because the first thing I thought when I felt Ben on Takodana was…”

_There you are, she thinks, and then, weirdly, I missed you._

“I thought about how I missed him,” she breathes. “Like I’d felt him before, been near him before, and he’d left me, but I hadn’t known that until just that moment, when he came back.”

She watches her past self twist on the spot, and begin to sprint into the forest, chasing after the warmth.

“And it was always just…” Rey turns, and looks at Bail. “You.”

_“And Bail…” Ben shakes his head. “For me, Bail has always… He’s my mirror.”_

“You are your brother’s mirror,” Rey murmurs. “You show as much of him as you can. And no more.”

A hint of Ben’s warmth. The warped reflection of Ben’s light.

Just enough; and never enough.

As the Dark Side has never been able to grip Ben for long, the Light Side has never been able to hold Bail. Ben could not stand the Dark, and Bail has no patience for the Light.

But sometimes; sometimes they can meet in the middle.

“My brother’s keeper,” Bail says. He seems to have aimed for sardonicism, but landed closer to yearning. A tear slides down his face, and he wipes it away carelessly. The water glistens, a poor facsimile of the scar that adorns his face in the waking world.

Without the scar, and with his darkness tethered somewhat, with him stripped to his bare Force essence; how similar Bail is to his twin.

How ghostly.

“I think,” Rey murmurs, “That you’re going to be the one to find Ben here.”

Sometimes, Ben and Bail can meet halfway.

Bail frowns. “How? There’s no fucking lake so far--”

“Forget the lake,” Rey interrupts.

She thinks of the Force, and she thinks of the way it ties. She thinks of stretching for Ben’s light, on Ahch-To, on Snoke’s dreadnought, in the scorched halls of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. She thinks of litanies, of desperate calls of _Be with me._ She thinks of the way Leia and Ben moved around the other. She thinks of how Han Solo spanned time and space to touch his sons.

She thinks of Luke Skywalker, and his first lesson for her.

“Bail,” Rey says. “Reach out.”

* * *

Rey closes her eyes.

_Ben._

She is watching the light flare up in the Temple of the Jedi, she is watching Ben glow from within, she is watching the heat swallow up the room, she is watching the Force nexus crack, she is watching Ben die, again, and again--

_Ben?_

She is looking at Ben in the grass on Ahch-To, she is looking at the way his chest rises and falls with his even breaths, she is looking at his hand as he points out constellations in the midnight sky over their heads, she is looking at the fire as it sends small sparks into the darkness--

_Ben._

She is studying Ben in the cockpit of the _Millennium Falcon,_ she is studying the easy way he moves around the ship’s controls, she is studying the frown that mars his face as he surveys the nav computer, she is studying the way he relaxes into the cracked leather seat--

_Ben?_

She is running into the snowstorm on Ilum, she is running towards where the First Order transport fell, she is running over ice-covered ground, she is running with only a prayer and a single name in her head, she is running to the man appearing out of the gray like a burst of sunlight--

_Ben._

She is smiling at the man who cooks her dinner, she is smiling at the Jedi Master who laughs with her apprentice, she is smiling at the lover who touches her like she is a gift, she is smiling at the teacher who helps her read, she is smiling at the friend who guides her through the styles of Sabacc, she is smiling at the boyfriend who takes her hand whenever he feels like it, she is smiling at Ben--

 _Ben,_ Rey reaches. _Ben, I am coming._

_Ben, I am here._

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

Unlike the beach beside the Silver Sea, this beach is all gray. The sand is rocky, distorted, blemished and dark. Rey frowns down at it, shifting her feet awkwardly, though in this form she doesn’t touch the grains under her feet. The instinct remains.

Beyond the beach is a gray body of water. It is hard to see what it is, exactly; it could be any kind of body of water, as the fog that covers it is so thick and bewildering.

“The Mists,” Bail whispers. _Sulita-Nukraya._

He stands at Rey’s side, hand tight in hers. The two of them gaze out into the gray, thick fog, that shrouds the size of the water and whatever might be on the other side from view.

But they know what this place is, what the water below the Mists is: the Lake of Apparitions, _Mia-Hayya._ And according to Seek, the Mirror of Remembrance, _Baba al Dukhrana,_ is to be found through the Mists.

“Careful,” Rey cautions, as Bail takes a step forward. He looks back at her. “We might hear voices in the Mists, but Seek said they’d be lying. We have to be wise about this.”

Bail nods.

They approach the shore cautiously. The lake presents a challenge, with the Mists of Forgetfulness above, and the Depths of Eternity, _Mashita Alma,_ below.

“I guess we forgot to ask how we’re supposed to cross this lake without falling into the damn depths,” Bail comments.

Rey is quite surprised they’ve made it this far.

She squints through the Mists, but they are impenetrably thick. Like she is trying to gaze through solid stone.

“Ben?” Rey calls.

Her voice echoes oddly, for a place that does not seem to have any walls. It only adds to the heightened sense of _eeriness_ that permeates the scene.

Bail walks forward.

“Bail,” Rey gasps, warningly, as he approaches the edge of the lake. She stares, horrified, as he raises a leg, and places it down--

He hovers over the lake.

Bail glances back at her, and shrugs.

“Guess we hover everywhere here,” he says, and Rey supposes that’s true, they haven’t yet actually set _foot_ on anything solid in a while. Still, she scoffs, and hurries after him, as the two of them begin to pick their way across the lake.

It is less a lake and more a mass of gray nothingness, Rey decides. There is no hint of a current, no small splashes of creatures within. Rey holds her head high, determined to not even glance downward, lest she fall into the Depths of Eternity and never return again. Or, worse: she will look down, and see Ben in the lake, see a Ben that is not _her_ Ben, is not the Ben who died on Coruscant, but an apparition. She doesn’t dare imagine what a fictitious Ben might say to her, to draw her down.

 _Water,_ Seek had said, _is a transitional form._

A transitional form, in a halfway place.

Bail slows.

“Do you hear that?” he asks, frowning.

“Hear what?”

Bail turns his head, looking around. Rey grips his hand tightly.

“Whatever you hear, it isn’t real,” she reminds him. “Remember what Seek said? Force apparitions speak through the Mists, and they _lie._ They’ll try to make us forget why we’re here.” She pauses, and adds, “Why are we here, Bail?”

“Ben,” Bail says, firmly, and Rey nods in satisfaction. “I only…”

“You only what?” Rey prompts.

“I thought I heard Luke.”

Ice grips Rey’s spine, and she somehow manages to further tighten her grip on Bail.

“It _wasn’t_ Luke,” she says, urgently. “You know that, right? Whatever he said--”

“He told me I was going the wrong way,” Bail whispers.

The Mists have closed in on them. It is only Rey’s determination to not turn around that leaves her certain she is facing away from the lakeshore. 

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him,” Bail continues, eyes unfocused. “Not since that night on Devaron, not since he appeared as a projection on Crait. I can’t get him out. It all feels like a cruel twist of fate.”

“What are you talking about?”

Bail seems to snap out of some kind of daze, his brown eyes widening. He looks at Rey.

“Nothing,” he mutters. “Let’s keep going.”

They have only taken a few more steps when Rey hears it.

_“Rey.”_

She slows, and it is Bail’s turn to ask what she hears.

“A woman,” Rey murmurs, looking around. The fog swirls around them, gray and monolithic. “She’s… She’s got my accent.”

“She’s not Ben,” Bail snaps. “So ignore her.”

 _“Rey!”_ the woman calls, a frightened scream. _“Sweetheart! I’ll come back for you!”_

“Mama,” Rey breathes.

Bail’s nails dig into her skin.

“No,” he snaps, sounding like he is speaking to her from inside the fog, and not next to her. Rey’s ears are ringing. “No, that is not your mother, Rey. That’s a spirit trying to trick you. Remember what Seek said. Remember the Force is going to lie to you, to pull you away from the Mirror.”

Rey squeezes her eyes shut, as the woman calls her name.

“Ben,” Rey whispers. “Ben. Ben.”

She turns his name into a chant, until her voice drowns out the woman’s, until it is just Rey and Bail and the dead lake and the gray mist.

“Good,” Bail says, looking down at her. “Let’s keep going.”

They move forward.

* * *

Rey loses all track of time.

They might have been walking for hours, or days. Perhaps minutes only, or entire years. The lack of discernible surroundings, the lack of a sense of exhaustion, does nothing to help Rey sort out what she’s experiencing. She wonders what’s happening in the real world, back in Sinkhole Station. She wonders if Chewie has commed Leia yet, if he has sought her counsel, her advice on when he should try to wake her and Bail up.

Chewie trusts Leia; but he is less inclined to trust the Force.

More than anything, Rey knows Chewie is determined to not lose Rey, not after he lost Ben.

 _I need more time,_ Rey thinks.

The voices in the mist have abated, at least. But Rey cannot ignore the prickling at her neck; the sense that she is being watched.

“Do you think…” Bail puts his thoughts together. “Do you think we have to… talk?”

“About what?”

“I don’t know.” Bail groans, his common irritation returning to him, and it is comforting to Rey, this bit of normalcy. “But this is… Are we even getting anywhere?”

She doesn’t know any more than him.

“Are you… reaching for him?” Rey asks.

Bail glares at her.

There is a sudden _thump,_ a noise like something heavy has slammed on something immovable, and Rey jumps about a foot in the air, forcing Bail to steady her with two hands on her shoulders.

“What was that?” he asks, looking around.

Rey trembles.

“U-Under my feet,” she stutters. “Something… Something _hit_ the top of the lake.”

They’d been operating under the belief that the lake was a lake, with the kind of water one could fall through easily, demanding a sink or swim response. But Rey felt the reverberations of an object slamming into the water, from _below._

“Don’t look down,” Rey whispers, eyes staring straight ahead.

Something is watching her, something is trying to _get her,_ someone who is not who they once were--

_Rhondi steps closer to Rey suddenly, to whisper in her ear: “Be brave, Rey of Nowhere. What returns is not the same, if it returns at all.”_

_It isn’t Ben,_ Rey thinks. _Not Ben, not Ben, not Ben._

It takes her a moment, what with everything being so gray and monotone, for Rey to notice that something solid can be seen behind the mist ahead of them.

She blinks, frowning.

The mist is swirling oddly, hinting at glimpses of yet more gray. Rey focuses, forcing her eyes to sharpen, to pick out the minute details, the hints of cracks. At first, she thinks she is looking at the side of some great, clunky mountain, and she thinks, inevitably, of the jut of the Force nexus, of exploding sunlight, and she starts to turn away.

“Ben,” Bail whispers.

His eyes are locked ahead of him, gazing through the mist.

“What?” Rey gasps, turning back.

She can see nothing; only the gray.

“It’s the fucking mirror,” Bail says, voice rising. “It’s the _Mirror,_ Rey! Ben! BEN!”

Bail drops her hand, and breaks into a run. 

Rey chases after him.

“Ben!” Rey screams, though she cannot see anyone besides Bail, whose longer legs have propelled him five feet ahead of her, though she’s sprinting as hard as she can right behind him.

She sees now that what she had mistook for a mountain is a glass that is nearly opaque. It’s massive, spanning so far above Rey that she cannot see the end of it, though considering this is Beyond Shadows, she is not convinced there _is_ an end to see. The glass is ancient, cracks like stitches running along bits of its surface, and Rey’s heart skips a beat at the impossibility of it, this odd, heady feeling it emanates.

Bail slows, approaching the mirror.

He turns around, to look at Rey, and she loses her voice at the look on his face. She stops in her tracks.

“Your other half,” Bail says, “may surprise you. But you shouldn’t be surprised. And know it would never surprise Ben, and it won’t surprise me, either.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ll see you on the other side, Rey,” Bail says, giving her a firm nod.

Rey takes a few steps forward, as Bail looks back at the mirror again.

He raises his hand, lifting his chin, staring into the mirror the way he’d stared at Rey in the throne room of Snoke’s dreadnought, when they were surrounded by ash and sparks, when Bail offered Rey a deal in a desperate bid to get his brother back.

Bail takes a deep breath, eyes locked in the opaque glass, looking at his reflection.

“Ben,” Bail whispers.

He extends a hand to the mirror, as he once did to Rey in the throne room.

At his side, Rey stares, hard, at the glass. She squints, and she thinks she can see a shadow forming there, she thinks she can see someone, she thinks someone is walking towards her. She steps closer, lifting both her palms, stretching to the misted glass.

 _Be with me,_ Rey thinks. _My other half._

_My love, my mirror, my dearest friend._

_Show me._

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

She is cold, suddenly cold, an alarming and far cry from the temperate temperature of Beyond Shadows. She shivers, alarmed, and stares as the opaque mirror shudders, as the mist that covers it begins to slip away, like thawing ice--

Rey stares at herself.

Past Rey stares back, greedily, tongue licking her lips absentmindedly, as she gazes into the mirror of the cave on Ahch-To. The tip of her nose is nearly touching the glass, her hazel brown eyes searching the depths of the darkness she stands in front of. Her soaked hair drips into her light shirt.

Rey’s hand is pressed to the mirror, copying her past self’s hand perfectly.

A mirror image.

Past Rey sought out this mirror for answers. She went looking for her parents, for an explanation, and the explanation she saw she took to come from the Dark Side, as she saw only herself.

The only thing she has ever had.

The mirror darkens again, as Past Rey drops to her knees on the other side, hugging her arms around herself.

And Rey thinks, _Oh._

* * *

She is sitting on top of the _Millennium Falcon,_ she is looking at the stars above, she is holding a mug of tea in her hands, she is learning about this man next to her.

_“Promise me something. Promise me that whatever you do, whatever you become… Promise me that it will always be your choice.”_

She is in the burning throne room, she is looking at Ben’s mirror, she is choosing the Light once and for all.

_“And I…” Rey steadies herself. “I’m nothing. It’s true. But I am my own nothing. And my own nothing is good enough for me.”_

She is kneeling in the dark green grass in the dusk of Velmor, she is staring up at her Master, she is listening to Ben as he knights her.

_“Your light will illuminate your path forward, because it’s you. Everything you are. Everything you have. You’re a guiding star, and you will be a beacon for others who are lost as you were once lost, who seek understanding, serenity, and hope. And you will never lead anyone astray, yourself included. You are your own best thing.”_

She is curled up with Ben on Ajan Kloss, she is overwhelmed with premature grief and heartbreak, she is crying, she is desperate.

_“It’s important to me that no matter what, you know you did enough,” Ben tells her. “Everything you did, everything you’ve done. It has always been enough, Rey.”_

* * *

She is the little girl, abandoned in the desert.

She is the scavenger, flying an iconic ship for the first time.

She is the friend, who gives up her chance at finding her family for the chance to save a new one.

She is the burgeoning apprentice, calling a legendary sword to her hand.

She is the lover, who offers her hand and chooses the man who loves her.

She is the Knight, who kneels in the cave under the desert and heals the predator that would harm her.

She is the Master, who comforts the Sith as he dies in her arms.

She is the Jedi From The Wastelands. She is the Chaos Twin. She is the Breath of R’iia. She is the Head of the New Jedi Order.

She’s Rey of Nowhere.

She’s her own best thing.

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

_“Come back!” the little girl screams, bawling, her free hand stretched desperately upwards, to the sky, as the ship disappears, as her other arm is restrained by her jailor--_

Rey opens her eyes.

_“Ben!” the scavenger yells, running, her free hand stretched desperately to the sky, as if she could stop the First Order ship from spiriting away the body of the sad man who has offered her such kindness--_

Rey opens her eyes.

_“No!” the Jedi cries, desperate, her free hand stretched desperately to the sun burning out in the center of the room, as her other arm is restrained by her comrade--_

Rey opens her eyes.

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

The little girl stands a short distance away from the group. Rey recognizes Unkar Plutt, the Crolute man sticking out as an unnatural addition in the Jakku desert. There are two people standing with him, two people with pale skin, ragged clothes, eyes glazed over with the haze of spice.

Rey turns away from them.

She does not care to see them, her parents, here at the moment of her abandonment.

She has eyes only for the little girl.

Past Rey stares out over the endless dunes, frowning slightly.

“I was surprised,” Rey whispers.

As the memory replays before her, she sees it in her mind. Two images, splayed over one another perfectly. Two halves, two wholes.

“We’d never seen so much nature before,” Rey murmurs, staring at her past self’s furrowed brow, the way she aimlessly tucks her thumb between her little teeth. “So much sky, without pollution besmirching it.”

Vulpter. The wasteland Rey was born into.

Jakku. The wasteland Rey raised herself in.

She can hear the woman’s voice behind her, that accented Basic that Rey speaks with everyday. She inherited that from her mother.

Rey doesn’t turn around.

She kneels in the sand, looking at the little girl, as the wind gently caresses the three buns of her hair.

“We’ll be okay, my love,” Rey whispers. “We’ll experience, one day, the sunlight that we’ve only ever heard in stories.”

On Vulpter, the sun was a legend. The pollution covered the skies, the toxic waste from the shipyards and the factories that scoured the surface. Sunlight was nonexistent. Religions on Vulpter were built on the belief it might be there.

On Jakku, the sun was a foe. It was ever-present, unchanging, and cruel. It burned away any and all crops, and evaporated the tiny pools of water. Sunlight was to be avoided as much as possible. Shade was a commodity to be paid for in blood and teeth.

And then there was Ben.

Ben, with his good sunlight. Ben, with his warmth.

Ben, who would die for her in the Temple of the Jedi.

“Until we have the sun,” Rey continues, to her past self, “We’ll have us. Our own light. Our own warmth.”

Suns are only large stars, after all.

And Rey is nothing if not starlight.

Little Rey gazes out over the desert, as behind her, her parents step off Jakku for the last time.

Rey does not give them the grace of her gaze.

She would have killed for this opportunity, once. But that was before Rey knew her worth. That was before Rey knew love, knew what she was capable of, knew what she deserved.

Rey of Nowhere has always deserved _love._

Her own love, her self love, above all.

Together, the little girl and the Jedi Master look at the horizon.

* * *

“Ben.”

It is the first thing he’s heard in a while. Possibly. If time is still something.

_“Consider that time and memory are the same thing.”_

_Memory._

Is it a memory, then? This voice calling?

“Ben.”

He pauses, and thinks, and hears the word fully, hears his name, hears it said in the voice of his twin, his brother, his other half. He knows what happens next, because he has always done it, and he always will. 

Just as he will always reach out one more time, he will answer. Always, one more time.

Steps away from his final walk into the Netherworld, Ben Organa-Solo turns around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Philautia: self love. I know the idea of "another half" is very alluring, but it is not comforting to me, as someone who has worked very hard to convince herself she is enough, alone. I think it can be romantic, and healthy, to think of yourself as a whole, to not need another to "complete" you. I wanted to give this to Rey, for her journey in this series. In the first story, she started to believe she was Something. In the second story, she started to believe she was Enough. In this story, she is realizing she is More Than Enough. Not only her own best thing; but a best thing, period.
> 
> Leia, Han, Luke, and Chewie have all commented on how Bail and Ben could read the other's mind, how they finish each other's sentences, how they perfectly mirror the other, how they seem to be the same person. Two halves of a whole. We'll explore what this means, exactly.
> 
> This is not a Rey/Bail story, and never has been. But it is a story about love, and forgiveness, and choosing to be merciful.
> 
> The text fell off the table in Rey and Ben's room in Chapter 14. Rey told Bail about "the sun will keep you safe" memory in Chapter 25. Rey did think Ben was familiar, back on Takodana, in AND THE WORLD WILL BE BETTER FOR THIS.
> 
> Yay Ben! He's back! We'll return to his POV next chapter.


	29. What's Past Is Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Because you did something I never dreamed you’d be capable of."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "What's past is prologue" is a line from THE TEMPEST, by Shakespeare.
> 
> If it's not obvious: I'm modeling how Beyond Shadows works as a mixture of the dream levels in INCEPTION and the tesseract in INTERSTELLAR. Probably a good thing I'm writing this story before I can see TENET.

Ben remembers dying.

More specifically: he remembers burning up.

He remembers the oddly acerbic feel of the Darkstaff in his hand, how it prickled his skin, but he held on tightly, desperately, like the galaxy itself was in his grasp. He remembers touching the stone of the Force nexus, and breathing in, trying to take in as much Light as he possibly could. He remembers the heat, the sonic warmth, that seemed to come from inside himself. He remembers how it didn’t really hurt; if anything, it felt uncomfortable, like a ripening sunburn.

He remembers stretching his free arm out, instinctively.

He remembers reaching for Rey.

It had been important. In his death throes, he thought of her, felt her presence in the back of his head, felt the fear in her light. He reached back, urgently, thinking,  _ Rey, I did not want to go. I did not want to leave you. _

He prayed a little, too. 

_ Make sure she knows that. Make sure she knows I didn’t  _ want _ to leave her. _

He wasn’t sure if it mattered, in the end. 

The heat tore through his chest, buoying Ben’s soul along with it, and he felt the Force bend in half as it coiled within him, and he felt himself be carried away into the cosmos as a beam of sunlight.

He burned up.

He left Rey.

* * *

Ben thinks he understands it now, why Luke and Obi-Wan were both so reticent in discussing the Netherworld.

It’s because it’s  _ impossible _ to describe.

Ben walks. Or, he thinks he walks; movement feels shallow, and muted. He might only be walking because walking is the closest comparison his mind has to his movements now. He thinks he’s moving, at least. If only because he is no longer in his body, on Coruscant.

He’s floating. He’s traveling.

_ There is no death, there is the Force. _

He hears voices around him, sometimes. Voices from long ago. Voices that might be calling him home, now.

_ “Hello, my love. I’m your mother.” _

_ “You have a good heart, Ben. And it ain’t a weakness.” _

_ “He told me to not be afraid.” _

_ “I’m Rey. This is Finn.” _

_ “You are the most controlled Jedi I’ve ever known.” _

_ “Be brave, Ben.” _

_ “I am my brother’s keeper.” _

_ “I need you to be sure.” _

_ “Will you dance with me on our wedding night?” _

He tries to reach for them, these ghosts that echo from his past. He wonders if this is all the Netherworld is, this place where you get to listen once more to the voices of the ones you love. He thinks that wouldn’t be too bad. He thinks he could find peace here.

He keeps moving.

Ben knows better than most how devastating solitude can be. He isn’t exactly a social person, but his six years without the Force, without his twin, took a heavy toll on his psyche. Walking here, in this odd, endless white expanse, he starts to feel that ache again. Something doesn’t feel right.

Has he missed something? Forgotten something, perhaps?

Maybe… Maybe someone needs to come get him.

_ Luke, _ Ben thinks, reaching for him.  _ Padmé? Bail? Breha? Shmi? _

_ Dad? _

He is suddenly a child again, a little boy with skinny legs and thin arms, a mop of black hair falling over a narrow face. He is walking this unknown space, lost and confused, and searching for that familiar silhouette, that tuft of wild brown hair, the smell of oil and rust and metal.

_ Dad, _ Ben thinks.  _ Dad, I’m here. _

He pushes forward. He calls for his ancestors, anyone with the name of Solo, Skywalker, Organa, Naberrie, who might hear him and come find him. Han had never known his parents’ names, but Ben thinks that kind of thing shouldn’t matter here, not anymore. If they loved him, they should have found Han here. And if they did, then they should come for Ben, too.

He briefly wonders if he should try reaching out for any family of Rey’s. He thinks they might help him, picking up on how Rey loves him and he loves her. But this is all assuming Rey has family, living or dead, who might have loved her. None of them came to her on Pasaana, at the Festival of the Ancestors.

Ben is gripped by fear.

_ Please, _ he thinks.  _ Please make sure she knows I did not want to leave her. _

She isn’t alone. She’ll have Finn and Jannah, and Poe and Rose. She’ll have Chewie and BB-8.

And Leia. She’ll have Leia.

_ Mom, _ Ben thinks, and he is heartbroken for her. She has lost her husband, her brother, and her son in the last five years. The war has been won, but the personal cost for Leia Organa is devastating. It always is.

Perhaps she’ll have Bail, now.

Ben is not too optimistic about Bail’s actions following the war. He thinks Bail won’t commit suicide, if only because Bail will keep fighting to the bitter end. He also doesn’t expect Bail to be kind to Rey; even on his best day,  _ kind _ was never a word Ben would use to describe his brother. Hopefully he can at least find a little tolerance in him for her. 

What becomes of a living Kylo Ren, after the war? Ben has no idea. He’d never paid the issue much attention, his mind immediately going offline at the topic of a life after the end of the war. Whenever Ben thought that far, he imagined a chasm. On the other side of that chasm was a good life, a life where the Jedi Order was thriving, where Finn and Jannah were Masters, where they had apprentices, where Ben got to teach only, where Rey was married to him, where they could have a house of their own. The chasm separating Ben from that life was the end of the war, and its murkiness and unknown horrors. Ben could never figure out how to cross it, to get to that good future.

He won’t ever have to, now.

This is not comforting.

Rey will build the Jedi Order. He knows she’ll do an incredible job. She has been building and fixing things her whole life.

As soon as he can master the ability to become a Force ghost, he’ll go visit Rey, and see what she has created.

For now, Ben walks on.

* * *

Eventually, Ben begins to hear an echo.

He thinks it’s an echo.

He’s been hearing voices for a while, since as long as he can remember being here.

_ “My worry-droid.” _

_ “In every way but blood, he’s my brother.” _

_ “I’m so proud of you, Ben.” _

_ “Remember how to forgive. You must remember this.” _

_ “Clinging to a star that you fear will leave you.” _

_ “What is it you want, Ben?” _

_ “That was the Force you used? The Jedi power?” _

_ “All the way.” _

But this new voice; it isn’t different, he’s heard it here. It’s his own voice. 

But it’s saying his name only. Repeating it. 

“Ben.”

And it’s echoing, slightly. That’s the best way Ben can put it, the closest comparison to the noise it is making here. The single syllable, ricocheting around the endless space. Ben slows in his walking, confused.

“Ben.”

He turns around.

* * *

The mirror is plain, a frame of glass surrounded by an ashy wood. Ben takes in the frame, perturbed at its similarity to what the Darkstaff turned into, as it burned in his hand. He wonders if the frame is meant to reflect how he died.

He looks at his reflection.

He’s a bit surprised by his own expression. His eyes are wide in his pale face, yearning and shock and joy warring for dominance in the tears that grow there. One of his hands is lifted, stretched to the mirror, as if aching to reach through the glass itself and touch the other side.

It takes Ben far too long to realize he is not actually looking at  _ his _ reflection.

Well, he  _ is; _ this is what he looks like when he looks into a mirror. But the figure in the mirror is not positioned exactly like him. Ben’s hands are at his sides. He’s frowning, confused at what he’s looking at.

“Ben,” his reflection says.

“Bail,” Ben replies.

A reflex. A chronic memory.

He stretches his arm out, extending his hand to where Bail’s is pressed to the glass.

Their fingers touch, and the mirror shatters.

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

She is out of the desert, the sands of Jakku swept away, the abandoned girl and spiced-up parents disappearing into the hot wind. Instead, she stands inside a building, with periwinkle blue tiled floors, and clean tan walls. She’s in the middle of a hallway, and for a moment, all Rey can do is stand and take in the people swirling around her.

Because they are  _ Jedi. _ Jedi, dressed in the robes of the Old Order, long robes of browns, blacks, grays, and whites. Most of the Jedi are human, and some are quite young, with a thin braid mandatory for Padawans curling around their heads. A young girl and boy hurry past Rey, giggling at something, training lightsabers hanging at their belts, and Rey stares after them, drinking in their clear delight. Older Jedi pass, a Bothan whose fur is white with age and a woman with a completely shaved head, texts in their arms, murmuring to one another in quiet voices.

Rey walks forward. Outside the window is a village, with thatched cottages and brick buildings, reminding her of Primaver on Yavin IV. Bright red reptilian creatures gambol about, playfully chasing after the Jedi who indulge them. The sun threatens to set over the sight.

_ “Wow,” _ Rey breathes.

She has always felt home among Ben, Finn, and Jannah, but the sheer scale of the Jedi Order here is incredible. She knows, too, that she is seeing merely a pinprick of the might of the Order. This is undoubtedly only an outpost; a stopping point for the thousands of Jedi sweeping through the galaxy. All she is glimpsing here is a microcosm of the Order.

The magnitude of what was lost with the fall of the Republic has never been so apparent.

Rey walks.

She passes by a cafeteria, serving up food that sizzles in pans, a line of Jedi wearing flight suits eagerly gathering at the lunch counter. She passes by the doors to what is clearly a  _ massive _ library, all stone and glass, stacks of datapads and texts stretching thirty feet to a domed ceiling. She passes by training rooms, where Jedi spar with one another, wielding lightsabers that will sting but not maim. She hesitates here, watching the Masters guiding the apprentices, and even a few Knights, and she thinks of Ben and his careful and intense work in teaching his Jedi how to duel.

Rey  _ misses _ him.

She has not seen a hint of Bail since meeting with herself on Jakku. Rey desperately hopes this means that Bail was able to go through his own mirror, and meet Ben on the other side. The retrieval of Ben has fallen entirely on Bail’s shoulders; Rey knows she is no longer involved in that outcome.

She is not upset by this, nor is she truly surprised. As much as Ben is hers, he was Bail’s, first. They’ve long had a connection Rey has never been able to understand, one that it is clear Leia and Han didn’t understand either.

And that’s what looking into the Mirror of Remembrance is all about; meeting yourself.

“Ryontarr!”

Rey turns.

She gasps at the sight of the Gotal who has looked up from where he’d been eyeing the match happening in the training room, because it’s Seek the Mind Walker. He’s young here, his hair much shorter and styled neatly, dressed in a tan tunic and leggings. He steps away from the group in the training room, hurrying to the Jedi who has called his name; a Master, Rey would guess, going by his stance, the way the other Jedi seem to fight the urge to bow to him repeatedly.

“Yes, Master Windu?” Seek asks.

“The High Council has a mission for you, Knight,” Master Windu says, and Rey smiles at the way Seek straightens, interest and excitement bending his spine. Master Windu picks up on Seek’s mood, a smirk curling over his black skin. “Have you ever been to Nath Goordi?”

“No, Master.”

“Well, you’re about to,” Master Windu says, and Seek grins. “The ruler of Nath Goordi died recently, and his heirs are in danger. We need a Jedi to step in and protect the heirs until the situation can be resolved by the courts there.”

Seek nods, following along.

Master Windu raises an eyebrow. “Interested?”

“When do I leave?”

Master Windu laughs, clapping a hand on Seek’s shoulder. “Let’s have a snack. I’ll brief you on your mission, and then you can go pack your things.”

Seek nods, following alongside Master Windu, the two walking back to the cafeteria. Rey stares after them.

_ Barracks, _ she thinks, and turns the other way.

She runs now, darting through the halls. There are no signs pointing the way in this Exploration Corps outpost on Ord Canfre, and Rey follows the tide of yawns and dirty clothes, assuming these are the Jedi looking for their rooms, to sleep and clean themselves.

The barracks in this Jedi outpost are quite nice. They’re clean, and uniform, a far cry from the barracks of the Resistance base on Ajan Kloss. There is no sense of uniformity in the blankets and furniture the Resistance has, as it’s all come from donations from sympathetic supporters across the galaxy, and the Resistance High Command would prefer to spend their money on things like weapons and rations. And the barracks are  _ mostly _ clean, though due to the reliance of everyone cleaning their own space, they aren’t nearly as clean as the barracks in this outpost. From what Rey can tell, there’s a fresher per two rooms, as opposed to the Ajan Kloss base, which is much more intimate.

She imagines sharing her observations with the New Jedi Order, imagines Jannah’s immediate request to have her own fresher, Finn’s interest in plush mattresses, Ben’s deadpan look of,  _ Rey, there are four Jedi, not four thousand-- _

She shuts the daydream down.

Until Ben is back, it is only a wish.

There are names on thin slips of papers on each door, indicating the rooms are used on a revolving basis and are not permanent homes. Rey scans the names as she goes, grateful that Master Windu yelled Seek’s surname.

_ Ryontarr. _

Rey steps through the door.

Seek’s room is sparse. She sees a neatly made bed, a cloak hanging off a hook on the wall, a datapad resting on a nightstand. A pair of boots sits under the windowsill, below a half-empty glass of water. Rey’s eyes roam over the space, searching--

And there it is.

_ Ways of the Cosmic Force. _

Rey darts across the room to it.

The text is cleaner and shinier now than it will be when Rey finds it under the floorboards. She imagines that the decay comes with being buried in a basement-like space for so long.

Rey bites her lip, gathers herself together, and imagines picking up the text like she’d knocked it off the table on Ajan Kloss in the past.

Hesitantly, she reaches out.

She picks up the text.

Grinning, Rey turns; and nearly drops the text.

Seek has a mirror hanging on the back of his door, and Rey startles, because she can see her reflection. She’s dressed in the casual clothes her body is wearing on Sinkhole Station, her dark trousers and Ben’s loose shirt, her hair coiled in a messy braid. But she shouldn’t be able to see herself. She shouldn’t be visible here, in the past, Beyond Shadows.

Apparently picking up the text has rendered her visible in this moment in the past.

She looks a little odd, though, her reflection a bit hazy. Like looking at something that’s slightly out of focus, the kind of thing that might give the observer a headache.

She’ll have to be quick.

Rey tucks the text into her side, marching to the door, which slides open for her, the sensors picking up on her body. She hurries into the hall, stepping past Jedi who only give her brief glances. Rey is enormously thankful to not only be dressed somewhat like a Jedi of the Old Order, but to be on an outpost that is so busy no one seems to assume they’ve met everyone.

She scurries along, keeping her head down, determined to not invite conversation, and ironically this choice is what saves her from tripping over the Jedi in her path.

He’s squat, and small, a green alien dressed in tan robes, a knobbly walking stick in hand. Long, goblin-like ears twitch as he tilts his head up, surveying Rey through wise dark eyes.

“Hm,” the Jedi says, in an oddly hoarse voice, “In a hurry, are we?”

“Y-Yes, Master,” Rey stutters.

She doesn’t know for certain, but Luke had once told her about a Master Yoda, information that had been confirmed and clarified by Ben. She knows Yoda was surprisingly small for his tremendous power, with green skin, an odd, roundabout way of speaking, and an attitude that ran wildly between earnest and sarcastic.

“What is your name, young Knight?” Yoda asks.

Rey panics.

“Leia, Master.”

“Leia,” Yoda repeats, and Rey wants to scold herself, because it truly doesn’t matter if she gives Yoda her real name or not, he’ll never know her, but it’s too late now. “Careful, now. Too fast, you must not be.”

Rey blinks. “Yes, Master.”

Yoda smiles at her, and Rey forces her face to copy his. The Force is quite still around them, muted, and Rey assumes it’s because she is only  _ sort _ of here. The fuzziness she saw in the mirror must be obvious. She wonders if Yoda is aware of this, if he is humoring her, or making fun of her attempts at being casual.

She doesn’t dare ask.

Without a backwards look, Rey hurries on.

She is, thankfully, not accosted again. Though the halls of the outpost will become derelict, desecrated, and hazardous when Rey and Finn explore their ruins over fifty years from this moment, the bare bones shape of the outpost is enough to give Rey a sense of where she is. She knows she has her years of scavenging in scuttled Star Destroyers to thank for her sense of imagining what buildings looked like before their destruction.

The floorboard the text was hidden under is near the mess hall. This much had been obvious to Rey, who’d quickly picked out the kitchen, with the ancient oven, the moldering stove, composted freezer. She wonders now if placing the text there was a choice she made, knowing how her past self would identify a place as important to her as a kitchen.

It is a choice she makes now.

_ Feryl smiles his eerie, bony grin. “Oh, it does. You’ve simply already made every choice you will ever make.”  _

She takes a quick look up and down the hallway.

And then she drops to her knees, and tugs the floorboard free.

Rey places the text inside, shoving it under a couple pipes, squeezing the brittle cover, distorting the shape. Seek had not told her where he’d gotten the text in the first place; she assumes he’d already been questioning the Jedi Path prior to his leaving the Order, and maybe the text was the first step in that process.

It doesn’t really matter.

Rey looks down at the text, half-hidden in the floorboard below.

The next time this text sees the light of day, it will be Rey’s hand tugging it free, inadvertently setting her on the path to put the text here in the first place.

* * *

Ben sighs. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You were never any good at following directions.”

Bail stares at him, brown eyes wide in his pale face. They are still holding hands, an awkward handshake that has gone on far too long. When Ben goes to try and pull his hand back, Bail tightens his grip, clinging to his brother, like Ben may disappear completely if he lets go.

“What do you mean?” Bail asks. He sounds a bit dazed. Ben hasn’t seen him even blink.

“I told you not to kill yourself, but you’re here, in the Netherworld,” Ben replies. “You must be dead.”

“Oh.” Bail blinks, at last. “No. I’m not dead. And this isn’t the Netherworld.”

Ben frowns. “It isn’t?”

Bail groans. He drops Ben’s hand, in order to press his hands to his eyes.

“It’s really fucking complicated,” he mutters. “Look, this isn’t the Netherworld, it’s a… a halfway place. I’m not dead, my body is alive and breathing in a space station in the Maw.”

“A space station in the Maw,” Ben echoes.

_ Ben tilts the text, showing Rey a drawing of what appears to be a yellow disc. It’s largely flat, save for what looks to either be a line of windows or silver running through its center. _

_ “This is some kind of station, I think,” Ben explains. _

To Ben’s immense surprise, the scene, that moment, appears to the side of him and Bail. He blinks, startled at the sight, his past self sitting on a mattress on the floor of the  _ Millennium Falcon, _ Rey lying next to him, resting her head on his thigh. 

Bail has also seen the image, and is staring at it with similar surprise.

When Ben blinks again, the image is gone.

Beyond Shadows, Ben smiles.

“Clever girl,” he murmurs, knowing it was Rey who must have made the connection between the station in  _ Ways of the Cosmic Force, _ and the disc in the Maw.

“She is,” Bail agrees. Ben expects Bail to sound grudging, unwilling to admit the intelligence of others, but he doesn’t; he only sounds honest. “She’s here too, Ben.”

Ben doesn’t think he really has a heart in this place, but if he does, it skips a beat.

“Here?” Ben repeats.

He looks over Bail’s shoulder, eagerly. They are surrounded on all sides by a neverending whiteness, and Ben assumes anyone here with them will be an obvious blemish in the landscape. But there is no one behind Bail, no one walking to them. Just the empty space.

“We had to go through a Mirror,” Bail explains. “Apparently, it would show us our other half. And I… I mean, it’s obvious now, you aren’t Rey’s other half. But you’re mine. So. I’m here.”

Bail is hesitant, speaking in clipped, stuttered sentences. Ben doesn’t think he’s ever heard his brother sound so unsure before.

“Why… Why  _ are _ you here?” Ben asks.

Bail looks at him. His expression has turned somber, his jaw tense, grief and something like shame running rampant in his eyes.

“Is it not obvious?” he wonders. “I’m here to bring you back, Ben.”

“Why?”

Bail gawks at him. Ben waits.

“Why… Why  _ not?” _ Bail demands. “You shouldn’t be dead--”

“You’ve tried to kill me before. What’s different about this time?”

“You should never have died for me!” Bail exclaims. His surprise is quickly giving way to anger, and in some ways, it is a relief. Here is the brother Ben knows. “I’ve never wanted you to die for me, I’ve never wanted you dead, period--”

Ben scoffs. “That’s not true. Do you not remember telling Vesper and Lior to kill me on Ilum?”

And there it is, the moment on Ilum, playing again for the twins to see. A battered and bloody Ben, doing his best to stand tall and fearless, lightsaber lit in his hand. Rey hovers at his side, looking very worried, gripping the Skywalker lightsaber like her life depends on it. Across from them, Bail, Vesper, and Lior stand, red lightsabers glowing in the darkness.

_ “I know,” Ben says. “I understand. I could never kill my brother; but I think I can kill my father’s murderer, if I must.” _

_ “If you must,” Kylo mocks. He turns to his Knights. “Kill the Jedi. I will take my lightsaber from the scavenger.” _

Bail flushes, the red creeping over his skin, an alarming contrast to the white around them. “I know. And I regret that. I was… I was out of my  _ mind _ in that moment. What with everything that happened, you coming back to me, Snoke meeting you, you being in that transport crash, Dad--”

“Dad?” Ben echoes, stunned.

He can’t remember the last time he heard Bail refer to Han Solo as  _ Dad. _

“You murdered him,” Ben says, and there is not as much venom in the statement as he would prefer, so pronounced is his surprise.

Bail nods. “I did. And it messed me up. Profoundly.” 

Ben has no idea what to make of this.

“Aside from that moment on Ilum…” Bail sighs. “I have  _ never _ wanted you dead, Ben. And I’ve never wanted you… I’ve never wanted you changed. I’ve never wanted you as anything other than who you are.”

“What do you mean?” Ben asks, bewildered.

“I have changed you,” Bail murmurs. “I left you on Devaron, and I  _ changed you _ in doing so. Every single choice I’ve made since then, everything I’ve done, the murders and the genocides and the endless crimes, they’ve all reflected on you. Literally, I suppose, since we wear the same face. And that’s unacceptable. Of everything I’ve done… That’s my biggest regret.”

“I thought your biggest regret was leaving me,” Ben mutters.

Bail smirks. “Yeah. It is. But they’re the same choice. Don’t you see that?”

_ Maybe, _ Ben thinks. In a roundabout way.

Time is a flat circle.

“So what made you decide this was your big regret?” Ben asks, scathingly. “It’s been  _ eleven fucking years, _ Bail. Five years since you killed Dad. Five years since Luke died. What changed for you?”

Bail swallows hard, and looks away.

The white space beckons.

“Because you did something I never dreamed you’d be capable of,” Bail whispers.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Ben says, thinking of the recent things he’s done that he is not very proud of.

Using Force Rend against the Terentatek. Trying to kill Bail.

Bail looks at him, and there is something despairing, something hopeless, in his face.

Ben has worn that exact same expression, more often than he’d like.

“Six months ago,” Bail whispers, “You killed Qirin. You killed _ Saffron.” _

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

The sky overhead is lit in blue and red lights, as starfighters and TIE fighters zip through the smoke-scarred atmosphere, lasers and explosions following in their wakes. The Star Destroyers seem to be endless, lines and lines of them, stretching as far as Rey can see. She gapes at the sight, her awe turning to confusion, as the Star Destroyers seem to balk, noses dipping down, like their crews have suddenly stopped working.

Rey looks away.

She is surrounded on all sides by black stone. The place has the look of a canyon, or a crevasse, that has had a bomb dropped in it. Rey can see glimpses of bodies, bodies dressed in black, lying broken and abandoned, among the dust and rock. She frowns at the sight, turning away, to look behind her.

And she sees herself.

She’s younger than she is now, dressed in white clothes heavily stained by ash and sweat. Her hair is a tangled mess, scratches and cuts lining her cheeks and arms. She turns in a slow circle, clearly dazed, taking in the sight of the stormy sky and destroyed rock.

She drops two lightsabers from seemingly numb hands. Rey easily recognizes one of them, as it’s the Skywalker lightsaber, the one she and Bail broke five years earlier. The other is of an unknown design, one Rey’s never seen before.

_ This is another universe, _ she realizes.

As Rey watches, her Other self drops to her knees, keeling over. Rey stares, stunned, into her Other self’s unseeing eyes.

She’s dead.

Rey gawks, horrorstruck. She shuffles closer, peering down at her Other self. But this Other Rey is decidedly dead, brown eyes staring at nothing, skin pale, chest unmoving.

_ This is how I die in another universe, _ she thinks.  _ Do I sacrifice myself to end the war? _

She does not see the ashy stick of wood to suggest she’d destroyed the Darkstaff here. Only more of that same, smashed black stone. But it does kind of look like Other Rey created or triggered an explosion of some kind, with her corpse now lying in the epicenter.

Other Rey’s body does not disappear into the Force, which also surprises Rey. Perhaps her Other self is not as knowledgeable of the Force as she is.

_ Where’s Ben? _ Rey wonders.  _ Finn, Jannah? _

Surely she has at least  _ one _ of them in this universe? Surely she is not the last Jedi?

Scuffling noises make Rey turn around.

Her heart soars.

_ Ben. _

And then it drops.

Because it is Ben, of course it is. His face, his hands, his body. He is bloodied and seriously injured, crawling towards Other Rey with a single-minded determination, pushing his body forward with a bitten lip and groans rumbling out of his throat. He’s dressed in a plain black sweater and trousers, clothes stained similarly to Other Rey’s.

But he doesn’t  _ feel _ like Ben.

Like  _ her _ Ben.

This Ben feels fractured. It is hard for Rey to look at him, because she feels almost like she is looking at something that is moving rapidly and sporadically, bordering on painful to watch, not unlike her experience of seeing her reflection in the Exploration Corps outpost mirror. His light is like an electric shock, zapping and flickering, with something noxious and polluted chomping at the end. There is just enough there for her to say this is Ben, and not Bail. But the difference is minute. Rey thinks any other Force user would have a hard time picking out the difference.

Other Ben falls at Other Rey’s side, his hands stretching, grasping her arm. He grunts, sitting up, and hauls Other Rey into his arms. The look on his face is devastating, as he stares down at Other Rey, cradling her neck in his hand. There is shock in his expression, and misery, but there is also something like… Resignation. Like he is both stunned by Rey’s death, but also unsurprised by it. As if he is thinking,  _ Of course this was going to happen. _

It is a feeling Rey sympathizes with.

He looks around, seemingly searching for someone, and Rey looks around with him. She doesn’t see any sign of Finn or Jannah, or any other Jedi, or any other  _ people, _ for that matter.

Other Ben gathers Other Rey to him, wrapping her up tightly, pressing his chin into her shoulder. He’s developed a thousand yard stare, and Rey can’t help but wonder if this is what she would have looked like if Ben’s body had remained in the Temple on Coruscant. She wonders if she would have clung to him just as desperately, and just as hopelessly.

As she watches, Other Ben sits up, curling an arm around Other Rey’s shoulders to keep her upright. He moves his free hand down, to press on her abdomen. He closes his eyes.

Rey does not expect anything to happen.

She can only gawk, jaw dropped, as Other Rey’s hand suddenly moves, rising to cover Other Ben’s on her body.

Other Rey sits up, eyes wide, expression intent on Other Ben’s face; she is clearly just as shocked as Rey is that she’s alive. Other Ben stares at her, blinking sluggishly.

Other Rey searches his face.

And then she smiles.

“Ben,” she whispers.

She lifts her hand, and touches Other Ben’s cheek. He’s trembling, wet eyes flickering over Other Rey’s face, his expression gutted, and full of such sweet yearning it takes Rey’s breath away.

Other Rey suddenly swoops in, and kisses Other Ben.

Rey can’t help but laugh.

They press close together, inelegantly and desperately, and though she doesn’t know for sure, Rey would guess that this is their first kiss. Typical, she thinks. To have something so precious and momentous happen with as much drama as possible. She’s amused by the idea that it’s she who makes the first move in every universe, thinking of the way she kissed Ben for the first time on D’Qar five years earlier.

It is Other Rey who pulls away first. She looks suddenly shy, offering Other Ben a timid smile.

Other Ben  _ grins. _

His face scrunches up, dimples expanding, Rey’s favorite Ben smile lighting him up in this gloomy place. Other Rey can’t help but grin back at him, her fingers delicately brushing his skin.

His beautiful smile falls, Other Rey’s falling with it.

Rey stares as he tips back, collapsing to the ground, eyes closed.

Just as dead as Other Rey had been.

Other Rey leans over him, having followed him down, clutching his hand. She stares, stunned, tears prickling in her eyes.

As the two Reys watch, Other Ben’s body disappears with a soft, cosmic sigh.

Other Rey sits there next to a pile of clothes.

But unlike Coruscant, there is no Finn and Jannah. Not even a Vesper, or a Resistance ground squad, to comfort her.

There is only Other Rey.

Other Rey leans forward, pressing her forehead to Other Ben’s abandoned sweater, her hands curling over her head.

She weeps, and weeps, and weeps.

For the first time since Ben’s death, Rey thinks,  _ Maybe my universe isn’t so bad after all. _

Being so close to a grief she knows intimately is terrible. Rey turns away from her Other self, and breaks into a run, hurrying away from this nightmare.

* * *

“Saffron,” Ben echoes.

The memory unfolds.

* * *

Dueling on a podracing track is quite difficult, it turns out.

Ben breaks into a sprint, bending his body in half to slide along the dirt, as a podracer zooms over him, so close the plasma in its engines nearly sears his face. He does not get much of a reprieve, as he drags his lightsaber back up, blocking the blow from Lior that would have severed his head from his shoulders.

“Watch it,” Lior says, smirking, his pale skin brilliant in the gray Malastarian air.

Ben leaps to his feet, shoving Lior backward, nearly knocking him into the path of another approaching podracer. While Lior scrambles to avoid it, Ben runs for the track’s edge, propelling his body forward with a Force jump to land safely on the other side of the wall. Most of the spectators had vacated the racetrack upon seeing a Jedi Master and Knight of Ren begin to duel, but a handful remain still. Gambling on podraces can be lucrative.

_ Finn, _ Ben calls, reaching out via the Force meld tethering their minds.  _ Where are you? _

He can feel Finn, a steady tree in the back of Ben’s mind. He’s close.

_ Near the oil fields, _ Finn replies, stuttered.  _ Qirin Ren is here. _

Cold slips over Ben.

Finn is a Knight, but he’s a new Knight, and Qirin has been a Knight of Ren for almost a decade. Though Finn will probably be fine, Ben does not want him to face Qirin Ren alone.

_ On my way, _ Ben reaches.

Dozens of speeders have been parked at the track, and it is easy for Ben to pick one and compel the Force to ignite it (perhaps an inappropriate use of the Force, but Ben doesn’t have time to hotwire it). He speeds off into Pixelito, leaving Lior to choke on the dust of the track and the smoke of the podracers.

Pixelito is an average size Mid Rim capital city, the sky commonly covered with gray clouds and acidic rain, the cost of so much mining underground. Malastare’s primary export is Malastarian fuel, popular for use among podracers, due to a common assessment that it powers a podracer engine better than any other fuel type.

The oil fields are obvious in the city’s skyline, plumes of black smoke trickling upwards into the air.

Ben guns the speeder engine.

It is much easier to locate Finn once he reaches the oil fields. Warehouses line the outskirts of the fields, taking in the oil mined out of the earth, funneling it into canisters, and preparing it for off-world sale. Ben can feel Finn’s Force signature emitting from one of these warehouses, like a beacon.

Close to Finn, and just as familiar, is Qirin Ren.

Saffron.

Ben skids to a stop, leaping off the speeder before the engine has settled. He sprints towards the warehouse, firing wildly with his blaster at the stormtroopers loitering outside. He is less focused on strategically maiming, and more focused on making it inside the warehouse intact and in time to help Finn.

He bursts through the doors, coming face to face with one of his own personal nightmares.

Finn, locked in a duel with Saffron.

Sweat drips off Finn’s black skin, brushing off his jaw that’s clenched so tightly Ben could almost worry about him breaking a tooth. His jacket has a fresh tear in it, blood dripping down his arm, and his boots are stained with fuel. His yellow lightsaber moves around his body, lighting him up.

Saffron is a tornado of fury and strength, her tight black shirt contrasting sharply with her alabaster pale skin. Her chunky brown hair is tied back in a messy knot, and her long, white fingers are covered in blood, likely blood of Resistance soldiers she’d clawed with her Palliduvan nails. Her green eyes are dark, practically black in her chalky skin. Her lip is curled in a sardonic smirk.

Ben is frozen in place, grappling with the horror of the scene.

“Bit slow, aren’t we, Padawan?” Saffron croons. Her voice has always been higher than one would expect for a Palliduvan, and its lightness is even more alarming with the darkness rolling offer her in toxic waves.

Finn growls in response, but Saffron has a point. He is noticeably slower than she is.

Saffron is playing with him, like a hunter toying with their food.

She never used to be this cruel.

Saffron kicks out at Finn, and he stumbles, winded, his lightsaber flying out of his hand. Saffron stands in front of him, her blade raised--

“Saffron!”

She stills, her entire body tensing. Slowly, she turns her head up, ignoring Finn, in favor of looking at Ben. She blinks, something vulnerable in her shock, and then a calm mask slips over her face, as quickly and neatly as the physical one she once wore with the other Knights of Ren.

“Master Jedi,” she drawls.

Her ruby lightsaber spits red sparks, the personification of Saffron’s darkness.

Ben hurries forward.

His lightsaber hangs from his belt, unlit.

Finn stares up at him, still prone on the dirty cement floor. Blood is leaking swiftly from a long cut in his shoulder. Ben can only spare him the briefest of glances, turning his focus onto Saffron, who is watching him with a stare that makes him think he’s now the prey.

“Don’t do this, Saffron,” Ben murmurs.

“Not a very good appeal,” Saffron chastises, clicking her tongue.

“This isn’t you.”

“On the contrary, it is  _ very _ me,” Saffron drawls. There is no humanity, no morality, to be found in her formerly green eyes.

Ben’s heart aches.

“Please,” he tries. “Don’t hurt him.”

Saffron offers him a cold, twisted grin. “All we are is  _ hurt.” _

She raises her lightsaber, lifting it over her head, blood dripping from her fingers down to the ground, and Finn cries out a warning or a fear, and Ben is moving--

With a familiar  _ schk _ noise, the dark blue plasma blade sinks into Saffron’s chest.

There is a beat of pure silence, as if the entire planet, the entire galaxy, has stilled in shock and horror.

Saffron’s eyes flicker down to the hole that has opened in her torso. Ben pulls his lightsaber back, extinguishing the blade, as if hiding the weapon may contradict the awfulness of the act. Finn stares up, taking a deep breath in relief, clutching his hurt shoulder.

Saffron looks up.

Her green eyes blink, focusing somewhat.

“Ben?” she asks, and the darkness that had latched onto her voice is gone. She sounds young again, closer to her twenty-seven years. She sounds, more than anything… Afraid.

She drops to her knees, her body keeling over.

“Finn,” Ben whispers, not taking his eyes off Saffron’s dead body. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Finn grunts. “I just kriffed up my shoulder, that’s all… How about you?”

Ben swallows hard.

He turns, offering a hand, and yanks Finn to his feet. He pulls Finn’s uninjured arm over his shoulders, the two of them hobbling out of the warehouse, leaving Saffron in the dark.

* * *

For Ben, the memory of Saffron’s death is never far away.

“I didn’t want to do it,” he whispers.

Unlike the rest of the memory, Saffron’s body remains in the white space. The specters of Ben and Finn have long vanished, taking Malastare with them. But Saffron’s corpse remains, keeled over, green eyes unseeing.

An image Ben himself has pictured, nearly every time since he’s closed his eyes.

Perhaps that is why the image lingers now.

“I know, Ben,” Bail says. “But you did.”

His brother does not sound cruel, or snarky. Only sad.

“It was her or Finn,” Ben says, unnecessarily, as Bail just watched the memory with him, and could easily see this for himself. “I had to choose Finn.”

He hates how his reasons sound so pathetic; sound like excuses.

“I know, Ben,” Bail says, again. “But you killed her, and when I heard… When I found out… I knew what it meant.”

“What did it mean?”

It meant heartbreak. It meant grief. It meant a depressive funk for Ben, the likes of which he had not seen since his six years of solitude. It meant hours spent with Rey, just to be near her good light, her affirmations that he did the right thing.

“It meant the end was coming,” Bail says.

Ben scoffs. “The end was coming a long time before that, Bail.”

Bail shakes his head. “No… I don’t think so.”

“The end was you burning the Temple down and murdering our classmates!” Ben yells, and his rage is enough to disappear the body of Saffron. The white space is even emptier now. “The end was you going to Snoke. The end was you killing our father. What the hell are you talking about, how me killing Saffron meant the  _ end _ was coming? If anything, the retrieval of the Darkstaff was the end for me! Or have you forgotten that the Darkstaff was what  _ killed me?” _

Bail flinches, violently.

Ben is breathing hard. It’s a strange feeling, as he does not really have to breathe. He’s dead.

“You’re right, Ben,” Bail murmurs. “Except… You’ve been thinking of the end as the death of you, or the death of me. And I have been thinking of the end as the loss of who we are, and who we are meant to be.”

Ben stares.

“Me burning the Temple down was the end of the beginning, I think,” Bail says. “And you killing Saffron was the beginning of the end. And so, when I found out, I knew there was very little time left.”

“Time left?”

“For you,” Bail whispers. “For you to remain  _ you. _ For you to remain my brother. So I went into Snoke’s archives, and found his most desperate, despicable dream. And I resolved to take it, and reshape it, into something that could save you. But I got it wrong, like I got so many things wrong, and it killed you instead.”

“You don’t mean--”

“The Darkstaff,” Bail says, firmly. “You killed Saffron, and I knew how much that would break you, how you’d never fully recover from that. I knew part of you died with her, as part of you would surely die if you killed Vesper, Hansa, Lior. As you would if you killed me. I was too late, in recognizing that. You were going to slip away with this war. You were already disappearing.” 

Ben turns away. He cannot deny Bail’s words.

They were his choices, the Force Rend, and the Juyo, and the rage, and arson. But would he have ever needed to make these choices, in another universe?

_ “Promise me something. Promise me that whatever you do, whatever you become… Promise me that it will always be your choice.” _

“And, it’s… It’s like Obi-Wan Kenobi once tore Anakin Skywalker apart and left him to die in the lava of Mustafar,” Bail says. “Like Darth Vader watched Luke Skywalker be tortured by the Emperor. Like I killed Han Solo on Starkiller Base. Like I tried to kill Luke on Crait. Like you nearly killed me on Coruscant. None of us came out of these events unchanged. It’s the same story, Ben, don’t you see?”

Ben can only stare, and think,  _ I know, I was there, I thought these things too, time is a flat circle-- _

“What’s past is prologue, Ben,” Bail says. “But I decided to change the story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is the longest fic I've ever written, longer even than GRAY AREAS. Yes, that does make me want to set myself on fire.
> 
> Including Mace Windu and Yoda here is super self-indulgent and I am not proud of it. But I thought it should be someone the reader would recognize, and since this is something that Really Happened, it couldn't be Anakin or Obi-Wan, because they would've said something. So it is Yoda. Master Troll.
> 
> Seek's mission to Nath Goordi was in the Old EU. He disappeared after this mission, and was considered lost/KIA by the Jedi Order. Many, many years later, Luke and Ben Skywalker would find him on Sinkhole Station with the Mind Walkers.
> 
> The consequences of the murder of Saffron by Ben began in Chapter 1 of this story. It was the catalyst for Bail's choice to pick up the Darkstaff.
> 
> For the first time ever in writing this series, I don't have the next chapter locked and loaded! Desperately hoping to have it written and decent by Sunday...


	30. Saudade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But every incarnation, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mood music: ["Chevaliers de Sangréal" by Hans Zimmer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24WWwhgCLgM) (Performed live in Prague).

Rey opens her eyes.

She is surrounded on all sides by distorted steel and cracked glass. The steel looks expensive, and sturdy, possibly phrik or Quadanium, making its destruction quite disturbing. Rey looks around, taking in the sight of a collapsed metal ceiling, polygonic windows obliterated by some unknown cataclysm, broken glass creating as thick a layer of dust as the actual dust that permeates the space. Outside, the world is gray, dense storm clouds darkening the sky. She can hear the sound of waves slamming on surfaces, somewhere far below.

Ahead of her, just below an abstract window pattern, is a throne.

For a moment, she is ready to panic, wondering if she’s somehow fallen into the future of the Throne of Balance vision. But she controls herself, steadies her breathing (she can’t wake up, not yet, not yet) and forces herself to understand that the throne before her is stockier, and wider, and while its color is identical to the Throne of Balance, the shape and size is obviously different.

She relaxes, and then she sees the figure kneeling before the throne.

The figure nearly blends into the floor and throne, as she’s dressed in a long black cape, the hood thrown over her head, covering her hair. Rey shuffles forward, automatically stepping over debris and rubble, though she still hovers here Beyond Shadows, and doesn’t need to. She steps close to the figure, bending a little to look under her hood.

And it’s her.

It’s Dark Rey, the Rey she saw in her vision on Ajan Kloss, after she built the new lightsaber.

But this is Dark Rey like she’s not seen before.

Tears stream freely down Dark Rey’s face, gliding off her pale skin. Her cheekbones are almost alarmingly pronounced, suggesting she’s lost weight. Her arms are wrapped tightly around herself, as if she can barely hold her body together. She’s curled herself, bobbing on her knees, staring at the floor.

“Please,” she whispers.  _ “Please…  _ Hear me. I seek counsel. I seek mercy.”

She lifts her head, looking up at the throne. Rey is pretty sure it’s empty, that her Dark self is pleading with a dead entity.

Soft footsteps make Rey turn around.

Bail stands there, dressed in the tunic and cloak he wore as Kylo Ren. His hair langs loose and lank above his shoulders, his skin just as pale as Dark Rey’s. His hands are folded neatly in front of him, and he makes no move to draw his lightsaber.

“Rey,” he murmurs.

Dark Rey’s spine stiffens. She turns, remaining on her knees on the floor. Her hood slips off her head, revealing chestnut hair tied back in a painfully tight knot. Her engagement ring hangs from a chain around her throat.

“What are you doing here, Bail?” Dark Rey asks, and she does nothing to disguise her irritation.

Bail glances at the throne behind her. “I’m here to stop you from making a mistake.”

Dark Rey’s lip curls. “You told me you wouldn’t get in my way.”

“I know,” Bail says. Rey’s lip curls harder. “But this is madness, Rey.”

“Just because the Emperor has refused  _ your _ pleas does not mean he’ll refuse mine!”

Ice slips over Rey’s spine.

She understands now, whose throne this is, where she is… It’s the remnants of the Death Star. It’s the throne of the Emperor.

Her Dark self is appealing to the Emperor himself.

“His help would come with a price too steep to pay,” Bail says, quietly. “But, more critically… He’s dead, Rey. My grandfather killed him over forty years ago. He’s in Chaos now, with the other Sith Lords.”

Dark Rey jerks away from Bail, turning her gaze back to the throne.

“Nothing has worked,” Dark Rey snaps. “I have to get creative.”

Bail looks sad. “Nothing can reawaken the dead, Rey.”

Dark Rey jumps to her feet, moving in a quick swirl of a twist to face him. She’s dressed differently than she’d been in Rey’s previous vision; her clothes are finer, leather and not cotton, and she seems to be wearing an actual dress.

_ “Leave, _ Bail,” Dark Rey spits.

He shakes his head, and takes a step closer. “I can’t. I’m here to bring you home. General Organa, Chewbacca… They miss you. Your Jedi, Finn and Jannah, they miss you. Your friends, Dameron and Rose--”

“Stop it,” Dark Rey snarls. “I won’t ask again.”

“Don’t do this, Rey,” Bail says, and he’s pleading, pleading like he did in Snoke’s dreadnought, but it’s worse now because Rey agrees with his plea, and is just as desperate to see her other self agree as well. “Please don’t go this way. Ben would not--”

_ “No!” _ Dark Rey cries, but it is a caterwaul, a cry of grief and frustration. Her hand plunges to her waist, revealing a lightsaber that emits twin beams of ruby plasma.

Rey stares in horror.

It’s not her lightsaber. The design is more complex, the hilt made of a silvery metal. Not to mention; she can’t imagine the crystals in hers turning so dark a red.

She advances on Bail, lightsaber ablaze, turning her brown eyes amber.

Bail sighs.

He ignites his own red lightsaber, but he does it with a clear resistance, and only to prevent Dark Rey from splitting him in half.

They meet halfway.

Their fight is a strange one. Dark Rey is fighting with a single-minded fury, a raw desperation, and her moves are frenetic and violent. Bail fights much more calmly, with obvious regret. He does not move to strike Dark Rey, or incapacitate her. He moves only to defend himself, and not a step more. Dark Rey is the aggressor, advancing on him. They reach the cracked edge of the throne room, and Bail hesitates, glancing down behind him. When Dark Rey stabs her lightsaber forward, Bail jumps, plummeting down. Dark Rey follows him a moment later.

Jumping while Beyond Shadows is a strange experience, but Rey manages it. She is eager to see how this fight will unfold.

It’s the first time she’s rooting for Bail to win.

The two duelists continue their fight on a peninsula of metal, more architecture that was jettisoned from the Death Star as it burned out. They seem to be in the middle of some giant sea, with massive waves soaring over their heads, slamming into the metal, sending saltwater over Dark Rey and Bail. Their clothes and hair becomes sodden, but neither slows, relying on the Force to shield them from the harsher elements.

“Come on!” Dark Rey screams, face distorted with fury.

“I don’t want to fight you, Rey,” Bail replies, and it’s quite distressing to see him as the  _ calm _ one, while Rey is the emotional wreck. Bail is still fighting with a kind of serenity she’s never seen from him before.

Almost… Almost like Ben.

And it’s as if Dark Rey has the same thought as Rey herself does, because she unexpectedly falters, her eyes widening, looking beyond Bail at something Rey can’t see.

Her right foot slips on the wet metal under her, and Bail is unable to anticipate the sudden move and adjust accordingly.

Instead, his red sword slips into Dark Rey’s abdomen.

Bail gasps, a shocked, distressed cry. Dark Rey blinks, not even glancing down to take in the sword spasming in her side. Her eyes are locked ahead, at open air, cold waves slamming into the metal.

“Ben,” Dark Rey whispers.

Her knees collapse, as her body catches up to the shock of the injury. Bail drops his lightsaber carelessly, as the terrifying double-bladed red lightsaber slips from Dark Rey’s loose fingers. Bail slides to his knees, catching Dark Rey in his arms, stopping her before she can hit the ground.

“Rey,” Bail breathes, stricken.  _ “Fuck. _ I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

He trails off, shaking his head. He lifts his head, looking around, and for a moment, Rey thinks of Other Ben, in the canyon of stone, cradling Dead Rey to his chest.

Dark Rey stares at something over his shoulder.

“My love,” she murmurs, and a dazed, yearning smile suddenly lightens up her face. “My love, wait for me.”

Bail glances over his shoulder, nervously.

It is obvious who it is Dark Rey thinks she is seeing, and speaking to.

Bail chooses not to pick at her delusion. He holds her tightly, brushing a tendril of hair out of her watery brown eyes.

“Go to him,” Bail whispers. “He’s waiting for you.”

Dark Rey’s eyes slide up to him. Clarity briefly pushes the haze of death away.

“Bail,” she croaks. “Oh… Oh, I’m… I’m sorry.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Bail says, and Rey’s heart  _ breaks, _ at the thought he is using this endearment for her, in this other universe. “I’ll tell them. They’ll understand. They love you. You are so loved, Rey.”

Dark Rey’s lip trembles. She lifts one shaking hand, to touch the scar that carves Bail’s face.

Bail smirks.

“Maybe in the next life,” he says, quietly.

He leans forward, pressing his lips to Dark Rey’s forehead.

Moments later, her hand drops to the metal.

Dark Rey dies with a smile on her pale, waxen face.

* * *

“Let me get this straight,” Ben says. He begins to pace.

He thinks if he looks at his brother’s face for much longer, he’s going to punch it. Again. Like he did on Coruscant, in the Temple. He wonders what a punch might feel like for Bail here. His body is, allegedly, not  _ really _ here. Would he still feel the hit? Will he wake with a bruise?

Ben sighs.

Not important.

“You decided to find the Darkstaff because you wanted to save me,” he says.

Bail nods. “Yes.”

Ben can  _ kind _ of get it. It’s a wild, roundabout, entirely  _ dramatic _ plan, so of course it’s the one Bail went with. It is the exact opposite of a plan Ben would consider, as controlled, detailed, and considerate he is. Of course Bail’s plan is certifiably insane.

“Yet, you…” he pauses, and thinks back to the Temple on Coruscant. His memories of the time in the Temple, the events leading up to his demise, are hard to access. He really has to become still, and think about it. “You decided it wasn’t worth it. Going back in time wasn’t worth it.”

It is Bail’s turn to sigh.

“I didn’t mean  _ that,” _ he says. “I thought going back in time, to the night on Devaron, was a good idea. But the means of getting there… The wormhole, the Darkstaff controlling a wormhole… It was too dangerous. Maybe if you were anyone else, if you weren’t the Darkstaff’s antithesis, it wouldn’t be. But I couldn’t trust the Darkstaff to not create a wormhole and try very hard to drag you into it. Then what would be the point?”

“What, indeed,” Ben mutters. “Never mind the millions,  _ billions, _ of others that could have been killed by the Darkstaff’s wormhole obliterating their planets… If it was only me, the price would be too high.”

Bail nods. “Exactly.”

It is a lot, Ben thinks, to be told in plain terms how you are the person someone else loves the most in the entire universe.

Leia and Han loved their twin boys equally, though Ben suspects they had favorites; he thinks Bail, so similar to Leia, was her favorite, while Ben, so like Han, was Han’s favorite. Luke might have preferred Ben to Bail as a student, because Ben was less likely to pester Luke into endless arguments about lessons or rules, but as an uncle, he adored both nephews. Chewie would sooner bite off his own arm than choose between them. Most of the time, Lando couldn’t tell the difference, much less pick one twin over the other.

Rey loves Ben, but she loves Finn, Rose, Jannah, Poe, Leia, and Chewie. Never would Ben demand that she choose between him and any of them. He’s always been a bit relieved to know Rey has such a solid support system beyond him, as he has always worried Rey only stays with him because she has no one else. It isn’t true. She stays with him because she wants to. She loves him freely.

But Bail…

Bail was the first person Ben ever loved. For the first nineteen years of his life, Ben would have been quick to confirm there was no one he loved more than Bail, his parents included.

But with everything that’s happened since, the last eleven years, Ben’s certainty that he loves Bail more than anyone else has fallen into doubt. Because it is awful, truly awful, to acknowledge your love for something so reprehensible, someone so needlessly cruel. It would be Ben acknowledging he loves the man who murdered their closest friends; the man who killed their father in cold blood; the man who tied Ben down and tortured him both physically and mentally.

Yet, Ben loves wholeheartedly. This means he loves hopelessly.

_ “I love you. I can’t help it.” _

Ben closes his eyes.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” he murmurs.

Bail seems to love hopelessly, too. But like with all things, he turns his hopeless, undying love into destruction and rage.

Bail would burn the galaxy down so long as he could find Ben waiting at the end of it.

_ What the hell am I supposed to do with that? _ Ben wonders.

“What was your big plan, then?” Ben asks. “You unearthed the Darkstaff, and then you decided you couldn’t use it to achieve your goals. Then what?”

“Then it was about… containment.”

“Containment.”

Bail shrugs, inelegantly. For the first time, he looks embarrassed. “Celosia and I… We knew, pretty early on, that we were, um…”

“Out of your minds?”

“Overwhelmed,” Bail says, scowling. Ben allows himself a feeling of perverse satisfaction, thinking, not for the first time,  _ You are such an idiot, Bail. _ “So we decided to try and… undermine it. Until a more permanent solution could be found.”

“Undermine it,” Ben echoes. “How so?”

“Well, we didn’t touch it, or pick it up. Evoleth and Fallow did. Fallow was a little hesitant, but once Evoleth insisted the power he’d feel was like nothing else, he followed suit.”

Ben wonders if Bail referring to the Knights of Ren by their aliases and not their real names is a conscious choice, or if it’s just something he’s so used to, he barely remembers what their real names were.

Then Ben blinks, and remembers--

“Vesper told me that,” he says.

_ “It controls us,” Vesper whispers. “It got into our heads, and we didn’t even touch it--” _

_ Ben frowns. “What do you mean, you didn’t even touch it?” _

_ “Kylo and I haven’t touched it. I won’t, I won’t, I can feel its power, and it is dreadful and cruel and unnatural--” _

The memory, Ben and Vesper’s interaction on Mustafar, briefly breaks up the monotonous white space of this halfway place. Bail stares at the memory.

“Oh, yeah, she mentioned that,” he says, once they’ve disappeared again.

“That was when I realized you wanted the Darkstaff for time travel,” Ben says, thoughtfully. “That it had been your original goal with the Darkstaff…”

Bail nods, looking pleased. “Yeah, exactly.”

Ben remembers another comment from Vesper.

_ “Luke already combed the Castle for relics,” Ben snaps. “A long time ago, long before he ever started training us. The Castle on Mustafar was a known dwelling for Darth Vader, his semi-permanent residence. Luke destroyed everything he found inside. He told Bail and me about it.” _

_ Vesper’s brow furrows. “No… No that can’t be right.” _

_ “Why?” _

_ “Because coming to the Castle on Mustafar was Kylo’s idea.” _

“It was my idea,” Bail confirms, half-speaking to Ben here and half-speaking to the very confused Ben in the memory from Mustafar.

“Why?” Ben asks. “You already knew there’d be nothing left in the Castle for the Darkstaff. Nothing of the Sith. Only dust, and ash, and anything useless Luke might have decided wasn’t worth destroying or taking. Why go to Mustafar?”

Bail rolls his eyes.

“Please keep up, Ben,” he snaps. “I already told you why.  _ Containment.” _

“You…” It clicks. “You were just trying to waste time.”

“Claiming we might have luck on Mustafar was an easy way to get out of the Darkstaff’s grasp, at least for a fortnight,” Bail says. “I took Celosia with me, since she seemed like she needed the break. She hated the way the Darkstaff made her feel. But I didn’t tell her why I’d suggested Mustafar. I wasn’t  _ that _ confident in her ability to evade the Darkstaff’s control. Bless her heart.”

“Wait, what happened to Vesper?”

“Oh, she’s still alive,” Bail says, hurriedly. “As far as I know. I guess after… After you died--” and here, Bail pulls a grimace, like the words are nauseating to simply say, “Rey told her to run before the Resistance could catch up to her. Vesper took off. I haven’t seen or heard from her since.”

Ben smiles, reflexively.

It is such a  _ Rey _ thing to do. To offer that bit of kindness. That bit of mercy.

“She did the same for you, then?” Ben asks. “Except you must have determined an agreement before you ran. Or shared contact info, so Rey could reach you when she found out about… Where are we, exactly?”

“Beyond Shadows.”

“Oh.”  _ Bit Nitupta.  _ Ben’s smile widens. “I was right.”

Bail groans. “Apparently. But you’re also wrong; Rey didn’t let me go. The Resistance arrested me.”

Ben stares. “Then how--”

But then  _ he _ groans, because he  _ knows _ how.

“Kriff,” Ben mutters, eyes wide. “Mom’s gonna kill her.”

Bail snorts a laugh, a noise Ben has not heard in so many years, and for a moment, it is all Ben can do to stand still and stare at his brother. Bail is smiling, brown eyes bright with mirth, and Ben’s traitorous heart can barely take it.

“I missed you,” Ben breathes, and Bail’s laughter goes silent. “I missed you so much. Every day.”

“Every fucking day,” Bail agrees. “Like walking around with half a heart. Like walking around with one lung.”

“I kept…” Ben bites his lip. “I kept walking to the right, and turning my head, and turning around, for  _ years. _ Like you were simply out of sight. I kept thinking I would look up and you’d still be there. Even when I was alone, even when I wasn’t speaking to  _ anyone, _ Mom and Dad and Luke, I was… I still thought you must have been there. Everyone else could be gone, but you… Where could you possibly go without me?”

The grief, never far away, is suddenly so raw and ragged that Ben presses a hand to his chest reflexively, to try and soothe the wound, to stop the bleeding.

Bail mirrors him with an identical movement.

“Why?” Ben asks, broken. “Why, Bail? Why did you go this way?”

It is the question, perhaps, of Ben’s life.

_ The _ question.

“Yeah,” Bail says, quietly. “Yeah. Can I show you, Ben?”

Ben has waited over a decade for this moment, the long truth, finally. Now, he finds he is afraid.

But this is Bail. This is his brother.

Bail stretches his hand out, and Ben takes it, and the white world falls away.

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

She is exhausted, and entirely ready to not be walking Beyond Shadows anymore. It’s a bit of a conundrum, feeling so tired, while knowing you’re asleep. Though she’s been extending her consciousness, so perhaps that’s actually to be expected. She had not asked Feryl or Seek about this phenomenon. They had made it sound like walking Beyond Shadows was so enticing that people would linger here for far too long, causing their bodies to decay.

But Rey is so, so tired.

_ A little more, _ she thinks.  _ A little more. I need to see Ben again. _

_ Her _ Ben.

Not Bail, not the Kylo Ren-Bail who dueled her in the Death Star wreckage. And not the hybrid Ben she saw bring her back to life. She needs to see  _ her _ Ben, Ben Organa-Solo. The Jedi Master who has been her teacher for so long. The friend who has always had her back. The lover who has always reached for her.

Rey’s Ben.

The one in this universe. Her only one.

Rey gathers herself, thinking,  _ Ben, Ben, my love-- _

And she focuses on what Beyond Shadows has offered her.

The room is dark. The walls are lined with a plain metal, black and gray, industrial standard. Probably duraplast. Panels of lights, plain white light and smaller alert lights of red and blue, dot the walls in irregular patches. The ceiling has odd red fans hanging just under it, for a reason unknown to Rey. In the center of the room, a strange, almost medical-looking chair sits. It’s tilted at an odd angle, slanting, so the person strapped to it is neither entirely upright nor lying down.

Rey stares.

Because it’s her in the chair.

It’s her from five years ago. Rey recognizes the three bun style she wore her hair in religiously while living on Jakku, as well as the tattered clothes and wraps she scavenged around the rubbish bins of Niima Outpost. There is no noticeable difference between this Rey and the Rey she was five years ago, save for that this scene never happened.

Rey would certainly remember being strapped to a chair like this.

“Where am I?” Other Rey asks.

Rey follows her line of sight. She isn’t surprised she missed him when she initially surveyed the room, as he blends into the darkness.

Kylo Ren is crouched on the floor, wearing the black robes and mask he was known for, before he took off the mask once and for all. He’s staring intently at Other Rey, chin tilted up. Studying her, like she’s a somewhat interesting holovid.

“You’re my guest,” he replies. It is not an answer.

“Where are the others?”

Rey is a bit proud at how even her Other self’s voice is. She’s sure she’s afraid; Rey certainly would be, if this had happened to her, five years ago.

“You mean the murderers, traitors, and thieves, you call friends?” Kylo drawls. “You’ll be relieved to hear I have no idea.”

Other Rey gazes dispassionately into the obsidian mask.

“You still want to kill me,” Kylo murmurs. He doesn’t sound surprised; but he doesn’t sound worried, either. Borderline amused.

“That happens when you’re being hunted by a creature in a mask,” Other Rey snaps.

Kylo seems to consider her.

And then in one, neat move, he reaches up, unclips his mask, and rises to his feet, pulling it off his head.

Rey’s heart stops.

Not because it’s Kylo Ren. She knew it would be. And not because Kylo wears Ben’s face. She knew that, too.

Her heart stops, because it’s  _ Ben. _

She hadn’t bothered to really feel Kylo in the Force when she realized he was here. She’d assumed it would be Bail, as Bail has been Kylo Ren in every universe she’s seen. She’d assumed it would be Bail, because it should  _ never be possible _ for Ben to be Kylo Ren. Ben, with his kindness, his incorruptible goodness, his patience, his compassion, his gentleness. Ben, who would sacrifice himself a hundred times over before he gave in to the Dark.

But he is Kylo here.

His light is dimmed, almost nonexistent. It is cracked, fractured, like something is encasing that brilliant sun that is Ben’s Force presence, and only a tiny hole in the structure is allowing any light to pass through at all. Rey is pretty sure it is only thanks to her intimate and frequent association with Ben over the years that she is able to recognize him at all.

It’s hard, though. It’s incredibly hard. Like how odd he felt in that dark place where she died and he resurrected her, where his light was frenetic and strange. This is almost like that, except the dark is more pronounced. More comfortable.

“Ben,” Rey whispers.

Other Rey is staring at Kylo/Ben. There is no small trace amount of surprise in her eyes; whatever she’d been expecting to see under the mask, it had not been him.

Kylo/Ben slams his mask into an eerie ashtray. He approaches Other Rey, his face inscrutable. Other Rey stares ahead, her eyes occasionally flickering to him.

“Tell me about the droid,” Kylo/Ben prompts, and Rey’s heart can barely handle it, how  _ calm _ he is.

The calmness has never been something of Bail. It has only been something of Ben.

_ What happened to you? _ Rey thinks, staring. She is vaguely aware that her Other self is responding to his query, that Kylo/Ben is replying to that, but she can’t focus. She can only grapple with this existential horror that she was  _ wrong,  _ wrong when she faced Bail in Snoke’s burning throne room, and told him that he had left Ben, because he’d left the Light.

_ The palm reader on Zakuul might have thought it could be true, but Rey knows, as sure as she knows anything, that there is no universe in which Ben Organa-Solo becomes Kylo Ren. _

It had seemed so simple, so obvious. Bail was the only twin who could become Kylo. Never Ben.

_ “I saw myself become Kylo Ren,” Ben says. He yells it, something afraid and angry and heartbroken in his voice. “I burned the Temple. I murdered my classmates. I massacred villages. I watched the Republic go up in flames. And I pushed my red lightsaber into my father’s chest. It was all me.” _

Ben had feared it. He’d  _ seen _ it, in a vision he’d dreaded for years.

_ He saw this, _ Rey thinks, understanding ringing in her ears. Kylo/Ben is leaning in close to Other Rey, who is doing her best to squirm away.  _ He saw this universe. And it was true. _

_ “Force vision is when a Jedi gets a vision of the future,” Ben explains. “But it’s only a possibility of a future; not set in stone. The future changes so rapidly we cannot receive a vision of it and think of it as fact. Visions do not come true because we wish or fear them.” He pauses. “The merchant has an interesting perspective. She told me that others who have studied the universe know that we are one of an infinite number, and that at some point, in some universe, the vision will come to pass. The trick is to know in which universe we are.” _

_ What of Bail, in this universe?  _ Rey wonders.  _ If Ben is Kylo, what is Bail? Another Knight of Ren? Or the Jedi? _

Kylo/Ben abruptly straightens, moving to stand in front of Other Rey. His arm is stretched out, fingers splayed, pointing at her.

It is an awful, cruel parody of all the ways Ben has reached for Rey over the years.

He  _ died _ reaching for her.

“... And now you’ll give it to me,” Kylo/Ben says, still in that discomfitingly calm voice.

Other Rey grits her teeth, fighting against the mental pressure. Rey can feel the attack in the Force, can feel how aggressively Kylo/Ben is pushing, and worries that it’s a moot cause, that whatever it is he is trying to get from Other Rey will become his any moment.

“Don’t be afraid,” Kylo/Ben murmurs, face shifting. “I feel it, too.”

_ “Don’t be afraid,” Rey whispers. “I feel it, too.” _

_ He trembles. Rey brushes a hand over his hair. He catches her wrist, and kisses her palm. _

_ “I love you,” he breathes. _

Yet another odd twist on an intimate moment between her and  _ her _ Ben. She wonders if this is common, the same words and physical tics repeating across the universes. She watches as Kylo/Ben flexes his fingers, staring at Other Rey. Waiting.

“I’m not giving you  _ anything,” _ Other Rey gasps.

A small smirk darkens his face, nothing like Rey has ever seen from Ben before. It’s nauseating. “We’ll see.”

But Other Rey surprises her.

And him.

She sits up a bit, sweat pooling at her brow. Kylo/Ben’s jaw clenches.

_ “You,” _ she spits, “You’re  _ afraid.  _ That you will never be as strong as  _ Darth Vader--” _

With a lurch, Kylo/Ben drops his hand, pulling away.

He stares at her, shocked, and pained. Other Rey stares back, panting.

And then he straightens, picks up his mask, jams it on his head, and leaves the room. Rey hurries after him, leaving her Other self to be watched over by a stormtrooper.

Kylo/Ben stalks the halls, hands tight in fists at his sides. Stormtroopers and First Order officers practically dive out of the way, doing the most to avoid him and the fury that anyone, non-Force sensitives included, must feel  _ wafting _ off him. Rey follows in his wake, eyes locked on his trembling back.

He leads her to a secluded part of this place (base? Ship?), slipping into a room that somehow manages to be even darker than the room he’d interrogated Other Rey in. There are almost no lights whatsoever, save for a small window, and a beam pointed down at another odd, ashy tray.

The cracked and burned remains of the helmet of Darth Vader lie on it.

Rey gawks.

Kylo/Ben tears his mask off, tossing it aside uncaringly. He marches to the mask, dropping to his knees before it, pressing his palms to his thighs.

“Grandfather,” he whispers, winded. “Grandfather, I…”

He’s breathing hard, like he’s run ten miles, and not walked two hundred yards. His eyes are wide, shock and horror dueling for prominence.

Rey stares, alarmed, as a tear slides down his pale face.

He doesn’t have a scar here, she notices for the first time.

_ Will I fight him in the snow? _ she wonders.  _ Will I scar him? Ben, my love? _

She still does not understand where Bail is, in this universe.

She glances to the side, as Kylo/Ben does nothing but pant on the floor. She looks to the small window in the room, wandering closer to it. Outside, the world is a mass of shapeless white, and Rey frowns, cocking her head, taking in the tundra and then, just beyond it, a dark forest--

_ Ilum. _

Starkiller Base.

She is on Starkiller Base, Other Rey has been taken to Starkiller Base, the droid Kylo/Ben was asking her about was BB-8… Exactly as Kylo/Bail had done with Ben, five years earlier, after abducting him from Takodana. He’d brought him to Starkiller Base, and interrogated him here, in an effort to wrest the map to Luke from his mind.

But Kylo/Ben did not ask Rey about Bail… And why would he take  _ her, _ a nobody, when he could have taken his twin?

_ Because he’s alone. _

The thought must come from Rey herself, but she is still shaken by it. 

She turns away from the window, turning back to Kylo/Ben, prone on the floor. He’s wiping his face with gloved hands, shoving his dark hair out of his eyes. The mask of Vader watches.

_ “You’re afraid. That you will never be as strong as Darth Vader--” _

The only family he has left.

Kylo/Ben trembles. He’s undone, unkempt. Deeply shaken.

Obviously embarrassed.

Other Rey should not have been able to best him, not when it comes to the Force, not like this.

Kylo/Ben… He is not okay. He is not well.

Rey approaches him, standing over him. She wishes she could reach out, that she could touch him. But this is not her universe. This is not  _ her _ Ben.

Perhaps… Perhaps her Other self will be able to love him.

As this strange, hybrid Ben-Bail creature.

_ “I think I would have found you,” Ben tells Rey, now, on Ajan Kloss, the end galloping towards them, “In any life, in any universe. I think we would have reached for the other.” _

“Not only any universe,” Rey whispers, aware she is talking only to herself, “But every incarnation, too.”

The universe where Rey turns to the Dark, and Ben loves her still.

The universe where Ben is this chaotic, unstable Dark Force user, and Rey dies, and he revives her.

The universe where Rey and Bail live with their grief over their mutual loss.

The universe where Rey runs on Takodana, and Kylo Ren tracks her down.

_ Was it you?  _ Rey wonders now, studying the ashen, shamed face of this man she loves in another life.  _ Was it you, in the forest? Was it Bail? _

_ How much does it truly matter? _

She swallows hard, at the thought, but it persists.

_ Where does Ben end, and where does Bail begin? _

Rey shakes her head, pulling back.

Leaving Kylo/Ben behind, she walks into the white light.

_ “So this could be any time?” she checks. “The past, or the future?” _

_ Feryl nods. “Or another universe entirely, yes. But it isn’t random. Your subconscious chose this time and place for you to visit. There is something for you here.” _

Rey thinks she is close to understanding what Beyond Shadows has been trying to tell her. She thinks she might know already, but is not yet ready to face it. She thinks she needs one more moment, one more memory.

One more chance.

“Ben,” Rey calls, as she walks. 

_ Let me see him, _ Rey thinks,  _ Let me go to him, where he needs me the most, and bring him back. _

She starts to run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saudade: A Portugese word, allegedly meaning something along the lines of "the love that remains." Think bittersweetness, nostalgia, the knowledge that this thing you love may never be loved the same way again.
> 
> Ugh so I know the "infinite universes" theory means there is, in fact, a universe where Rey is Palpatine's granddaughter, and he's been manipulating Ben Solo forever, but since that's a stupid universe, I won't be partaking in it. :)
> 
> So now we know why Bail wanted to go to Mustafar, and why he never picked up the Darkstaff himself. What else do we need to know from him? (I'm actually asking because I'm currently writing the next chapter and I know I'm probably going to forget things that should be talked about sooner rather than later...)
> 
> [So, you're thinking about writing a fic including time travel? My number one bit of advice is to Not, and my second bit is to OUTLINE THE HELL out of it before you start it!!! Don't be me, Local Moron who can't outline to save her life.]


	31. Tamquam, Alter Idem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We were never supposed to be two separate people.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mood music: ["Time" by Hans Zimmer. (Performed here live in Prague).](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va1oiojnGrA)

The croaks and calls of the twilight creatures are the first things Ben notices about the location Bail has brought him to. He opens his eyes, spotting a few rustling feathers of the golden taka-tays, catches the way the bushes tremble as the massive pikhrons poke around in their nighttime grazing. Gnarltrees stretch upward, dark branches swaying gently in the cool nocturnal breeze, dwarfing the Hanava trees near them, each heavy with seasonal fruit. Beyond the jungle are the mountains, stygian and still, not as tall as mountains on other worlds, but just as imposing here, especially in the dark like this. The sun has long since set, the peaks highlighted in a dim yellow.

“We always spoke of climbing the Blue Mountains, didn’t we?” Bail asks, naming the range that defines the horizon. “Perhaps after we completed the Trials, we thought…”

“But then Knighthood happened,” Ben murmurs, nodding. “And we were far too busy to do something so frivolous.”

“Crossing those mountains could never be _frivolous,”_ Bail scoffs. “Nothing on Devaron is _frivolous.”_

He’s right, and Ben does not deny it. Devaron is a temperate, but wild world. A planet in the Colonies, known for its low mountains and deep valleys, abyssal jungles, and a river system more complicated than most traffic systems in the Core Worlds. But the government had been pleased by Luke Skywalker’s choice to establish his new Jedi school on the world, built in the wreckage of the Temple of Eedit, a location maintained by the Old Jedi Order, destroyed when the Old Republic fell with them.

While Luke had always maintained it was the history of good relations between the Jedi and the Devaronian government that led to the easy acceptance of the New Order here, Ben has always privately wondered how much of it had to do with Leia Organa. The government of Devaron is a matriarchy, as Alderaan had once been. It wouldn’t have been hard for Luke to get a foot in the door, not as the brother of a matriarchal heir of a dead planet.

It doesn’t matter anymore, how Luke got permission to found his school on Devaron.

Ben thinks it was doomed no matter where it was built, right from the start.

“When is this?” Ben asks, turning around.

The huts and larger Temple surround them, bits of architecture scattered unevenly across the hillside. The Temple had been built atop the more stable ruins of the Eedit Temple, while the huts had been built by the New Jedi. Luke had built the first few huts, and then, as more children came and Ben and Bail got older, he encouraged the Jedi to practice their burgeoning Alter Force abilities and build them themselves.

Where he and Bail stand, Ben can see his old hut, the one set a little to the side, under a wizened willow tree. It was near a stream, something Ben had liked, as the familiarity of the rushing water had reminded him of Chandrila, and its Silver Sea. Comforting childhood nostalgia, something he craved, when he was so far from it.

Above them, the stars are endless in the midnight sky.

The two moons of Devaron twinkle at them.

“It’s the last night,” Bail murmurs, and it takes Ben a moment to understand.

“The night you turned,” he says, his breaths coming more harshly, as the old anxiety and trauma rumbles inside him, as familiar as the sound of his voice. “The night you left.”

“You wanted to know why,” Bail whispers. “So. We’re here.”

Bail begins to walk forward, and Ben hurries after him. He can’t see anyone, cannot hear anyone, no loud laughter or teasing calls. Luke’s call for lights out must have gone out hours ago, the Jedi sticking to the “early to rise, early to bed” mandate Luke had once read about being critical to the Old Jedi Order’s way.

Ben walks after his brother, and is quick to realize Bail is guiding them to his old hut. Bail’s was not far from Ben’s, but it was in a shadier location, due to Bail’s interest in the shade from the trees cooling his hut during the humid summers.

Ahead of them, leading the way to Bail’s hut, is a figure dressed in a dark cloak.

Ben slows.

It’s not that he _forgot_ what happened, what Luke had done… It’s just he doesn’t like to think about it.

Bail pauses, and glances behind him, having realized Ben had paused. He smirks, but it is a smirk of cruelty, of sardonicism, of pain.

“I told you, didn’t I?” Bail asks, eyebrow raised.

“You did,” Ben whispers.

_“I can help you,” Ben says, practically begs it. “I’ve helped you fight Snoke before, remember, I’ve always heard him too--”_

_“That was before,” Bail says, with an elegant shrug. “Now Skywalker’s tried to kill me. There’s no going back. Only forward.”_

_“That can’t be true.”_

_Bail’s grin is a snarl. “You wouldn’t believe the things that can be true.”_

It is strange, to see that memory, of this very night but a half an hour or so later, play out next to them now. Both men look at the image, the way it is so smoothly placed over the landscape, as it will happen here.

Luke had also told Ben the truth of this moment later. Over six years later, and only when Rey forced it out of him, as the rain poured around them on Ahch-To.

Moments before Rey would leave Ben, as Bail did, in another rainstorm.

The one on this planet. The one that is impending, and inevitable.

Bail marches forward, and Ben follows.

He’s wanted to know, hasn’t he? Hasn’t he wished to understand?

They slip into Bail’s hut, their incorporeal forms allowing them to do so without the knowledge of the hut’s inhabitants.

It’s dark inside, the small lantern on the desk long put out. The ancient Jedi text Bail had been reading last lies open on the table, a thick sheaf of paper and pen for note taking lying beside it. A canteen of water rests on the desk’s edge, a bowl that had once held porridge, probably, nearby. And there, on the edge, where Bail had set it down after a long day of practice and sparring: his lightsaber.

Ben only casts the desk this cursory glance, for he has to focus on the figure standing in the center of the room. The hut isn’t big, and with four grown men inside it, even if two of them are not _really_ there, it feels cramped indeed.

Luke has thrown his hood back as he stands, surveying his slumbering nephew. Bail lies curled on his side, mouth partially open, his back to Luke. Luke studies him, one hand extended, eyes closed, as he dips into Bail’s mind.

“He taught me how to do it, you know,” Bail says, calmly, eyes locked on Luke. “How to look into the minds of others. Snoke, of course, taught me how to… To broaden that ability. How to truly weaponize it. But the power of diving into another’s consciousness, and rooting about in it, for whatever there is to take? Luke taught me that. Right now.”

Ben can feel it, the heady way the Force moves, from Master to Knight.

Luke’s eyes fly open.

The familiar blue is almost blown out, so pronounced is Luke’s horror and despair. Ben reaches out, trying to plumb the Force, to get a sense of what Luke is feeling… And finds nothing.

“I don’t understand,” Ben murmurs, frowning now. “What was he reacting to? All I feel is…”

He trails off, the rest of his sentence, the answer to his question, curdling in his throat.

_All I feel is you._

Bail has always been darker than Ben, colder than Ben. He has always been Ben’s mirror, his shadow. The specter visible out of the corner of Ben’s eye. The ghost that matches him, step for step.

Bail has always been like this, like he is. Ben has never feared him, and had never considered him truly _Dark,_ not until this night.

“And there it is,” Bail says, watching Ben’s face. Ben does not have to articulate his thoughts; Bail knows him far too well for that. The language is not necessary. “Luke spent too long living in the black and white dichotomy of the Jedi. He spent too long sticking to a rigid, antiquated rulebook, rather than branching out. Rather than offering… Offering understanding, or compassion, or--”

“Grace,” Ben murmurs.

_“There is no pain, there is grace.”_

The emerald beam slashes through the darkness, ignited by Luke’s automatic thumb. It is a reflex, as innate and natural as breathing. Luke is facing down an existential threat, as he once stood before Darth Vader, and heard Vader threaten his sister. He reacts now with a similar violence as he did then.

The difference here is that Luke is older, and wiser.

The difference here is that Bail is Luke’s nephew.

The difference here is that the evil entity does not know he is evil.

“Time is a flat circle,” Bail says, quietly. “Luke believed I was always going to become what I did, and so I did.” He looks at Ben. “And I believed I was always going to rule the galaxy, shape it the way I wanted to, in the darkness and the power… And so I did.”

The green light awakens Bail. He rolls over, frowning with sleepy confusion. He catches a brief glimpse of Luke staring at him, lightsaber ablaze… And he reacts.

It is a reflex, as innate and natural as breathing.

“No, Bail!” Luke cries, but it is too late.

Bail’s lightsaber flies to its owner, the crossguard beam coming to life in electric, midnight blue. Bail raises his hand, and tears the ceiling of the hut down.

Ben and Bail stand in the rubble, untouched.

“You know, I hadn’t decided yet,” Bail muses. “When Luke came to me, here? I hadn’t made the choice yet. Snoke was breathing down my neck, Hansa and Vesper were eager for us to go, Lior and Saffron ready to follow… But I still hesitated.”

And Ben has known this.

_“I don’t know when he made his choice,” Ben says. “I don’t know what happened to cause it. I woke up one night to the smell of smoke, and blood in puddles on the ground. I saw my brother strike down an apprentice. I watched my brother choose The Voice, choose Snoke, over me.”_

Ben has spent years grappling with it, trying to determine when the choice was made. He doesn’t know when, yet; but he knows why Bail hadn’t made the choice by now.

“Because of me,” Ben whispers.

“Because of you,” Bail confirms. “For all the time I’ve spent ranting and complaining about you leaving me… I think I always knew you’d never come with me. I spent so much effort focusing on my anger over you staying because it was easier. Easier than admitting I’d gone somewhere you could not follow.”

Ben looks at him.

“I never could,” he says, softly. “If I was… You must know, Bail. If I was ever going to turn to the Dark, for anyone… It would have been this night. It would have been for you.”

Bail offers him a bittersweet smile.

Perhaps he knows, perhaps he understands, what Ben means.

It is a lot, to be told in plain terms how you are the person someone else loves the most in the entire universe.

Although in Ben’s case, the person he loves most is _himself;_ the goodness that defines him. The Light.

He has always been defined by the Light.

“I know, Ben,” Bail says, and Ben knows that by that, he means, _I understand._

They slip out of the demolished hut. The clouds have rolled in suddenly, and the rain is falling in thick, heavy sheets. Ben feels the Force coil, and then stretch, as Bail crawls out of the wreckage, lightsaber in hand, calling for the others.

“The way it started to rain, so quickly, so ferociously,” Bail comments, “It added to the sense of destiny. The rain poured down, and washed away Bail Organa-Solo, and everything I’d been told to be. Until all that was left was the man who would become Kylo Ren.” Bail looks at him. “I know that sounds dramatic, but I was nineteen, and we’re just like that. Weren’t we?”

Vesper, Hansa, Lior, and Saffron appear out of the darkness like icebergs on a black sea; sudden, and deadly.

Bail only needs to give them a firm nod before they attack.

The sound of the hut collapsing woke up Bail’s nearest neighbors, and it is these Jedi who fall first.

Jaa, a Kessurian with red skin and elongated ears, has only time to ignite his green lightsaber before he is killed by Hansa’s purple blade spearing through his chest. He cries out, a yell echoed by Salis, his neighbor. She’s able to get a few strikes on Vesper, but is quickly struck down by the attack Saffron follows up with.

The five future Knights of Ren proceed to carve up the students of Luke’s Temple.

Ben forces himself to watch it all.

He’d come in at the end of it, somehow managing to sleep through most of the slaughter. He thinks it’s due to the fact his hut had been so secluded in comparison to the other students’, that, for most of his life, he’d been a fairly heavy sleeper.

Ben would never sleep well again. Not like he did before this night.

“Bail!”

Both twins turn, to watch as Ben comes barreling out of the darkness, boots poorly tied, sliding through the mud. He is horror-struck, moving with an unsteadiness, moving forward because he can’t stop, because if he stops, he’ll have to begin to process what he is seeing.

“Bail! Bail, what’s happening?” Other Ben yells. “Bail--”

He skids to a stop, facing down the five Darksiders who are waiting for him.

“Come with me,” Other Bail says. “Ben, come with me.”

“I knew what had happened, the second I came outside,” Ben says, watching his past self and brother face off. Other Ben is obviously unarmed, standing in his sleep clothes in the rain. Vesper laughs at him, her blonde braid dripping with rain. “But I just… I needed to hear you say it.”

“You and me,” Other Bail says.

“Not like this,” Other Ben breathes. “It wouldn’t be you and me. It would be us, and Snoke.”

“As long as you were there,” Bail murmurs, “I thought that was an acceptable price. I thought we could handle Snoke.” Bail laughs. “Another thing I was wrong about.”

They watch as Bail claims Luke has tried to kill him. As Ben immediately refutes the statement.

“You were right,” Ben whispers. “When I found out, when Luke told me… I was so _ashamed._ I should have believed you. _You.”_

Bail shrugs. “Well. I certainly thought so at the time. But we just saw what happened, didn’t we? Luke didn’t actually try to kill me.”

“Semantics.”

Bail laughs again. “Careful now, Ben. Don’t go sounding like me.”

They watch as Other Ben takes a few stuttering steps back, as the reality of what is happening sinks in. Other Bail stares at him, eyes ablaze.

“Am I not my brother’s keeper?” Other Bail asks.

The twins stare at each other.

It is the last time they will see each other for six years.

“I was so angry with Luke,” Bail says. “I thought he’d died when the hut came down, actually. And I remember feeling, just… Frustrated about that. I’d wanted a more violent reckoning. I’d wanted to look him in the eye, so he could _see_ it, my pain, and my fury. I wanted him to suffer. And then I got the opportunity.”

Ben looks at him. “Crait.”

“Crait,” Bail confirms.

Other Ben turns, and breaks into a run.

Other Bail stares after him, watching, as he disappears into the night. His face is hard, pale in the darkness. He is trembling from head to foot.

“You could change this right now,” Ben murmurs. “Because this is really then, isn’t it? This isn’t just a memory. This is that moment.”

Ben is not entirely sure how Beyond Shadows works, but this feels too visceral, too accurate, to be the composite sketch of Ben and Bail’s combined memory.

Bail smiles, but it is a sad smile.

“I couldn’t,” he says, quietly. “Because you no longer _believed me.”_

That moment. That singular, heartbeat of a moment, where Bail confided in Ben with the truth, the traumatizing, devastating truth: _Luke tried to kill me._ And for the first time ever, Ben refused to believe his brother. His best friend, his twin, his other half.

“There was no coming back from that,” Bail murmurs, and Ben knows what he means.

Even now, even now knowing the truth and understanding everything that happened: Ben’s denial of Bail’s honesty has fractured them in a way they could never recover from.

“I left you first,” Ben whispers, stunned. “The second I chose not to believe you.”

The regret is a red hot branding iron to his chest. He wants to _scream._

“Can I go back?” Ben asks, looking around. Bail and the others have congregated closely, talking quietly, determining their next steps. “Speak to my Other self? Tell him to believe you--”

“No.”

Ben spins around. _“No?”_

“We’ve already made every choice we’ll ever make,” Bail murmurs. “Some things are always inevitable, Ben. I think this will always happen to us.”

“It never should have happened,” Ben snarls.

“When it comes to things that should never have happened,” Bail says, thoughtfully, “I think we’d have to go much further back.”

Ben frowns. “What do you mean?”

Devaron slips away.

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

Initially, she is very confused by her surroundings. She seems to be in the storage bay of a large freighter, judging by the sturdy metal walls and numerous crates. The crates surround her, stacked ten high, stretching to a ceiling, a handful of poor orange lights scattered around, ten feet or so apart. This meager lighting only adds to the drabbiness of the scene, the sense of griminess and discomfort. Rey squints at the sides of the crates around her, trying to ascertain what they contain. Rations, it seems. Simple foodstuffs.

 _Why am I here?_ Rey wonders.

She had asked Beyond Shadows to guide her to Ben, to where he needed her most. She had assumed it would take her to wherever Ben and Bail are, so she could help bring Ben back in any way possible.

That does not seem to have happened.

Rey walks forward. Water drips from the ceiling, creating dirty puddles on the floor. She can’t feel the climate, as she isn’t here, but she’d guess it’s cold. Aside from the creaking of the stacked crates and the rumbling of the freighter’s engine, it is very quiet.

If Rey had not been looking so intently, she would have missed him.

A boy is curled in a corner, knees tucked into his chest, chin resting on his folded knees. He stares straight ahead, stares at nothing, his black hair wet and matted down over his face. His skin is alarmingly white, pale in comparison to the dark metal of the freighter. His entire body is trembling, spasming in violent shivers. He’s dressed in loose, thin clothes, clearly not prepared for this kind of environment at all.

“Ben,” Rey whispers.

It’s Ben. _Her_ Ben.

Going by his soaked figure, his sleep clothes she has seen so recently… This is Ben in the immediate hours after the destruction of the Temple on Devaron. This is nineteen year old Ben on the run.

Ben, alone for the first time in his life.

He’s biting his lip tightly. A thin tendril of blood drips over his waxen skin.

“My love,” Rey breathes, approaching him. She moves cautiously, though he cannot see or hear her. She does it automatically, as she would approach any wild animal. Any cornered creature that would lash out in an effort to defend itself.

A loud _thunk_ comes from overhead, and Rey jumps. Ben does not react at all; only continues to stare blankly in front of him, reliving the horrors that have brought him here.

The great loss that would precede what follows: a life of grief.

Rey is seeing a small glimpse of a Ben Organa-Solo she has never known. The one who knew his place in the universe was at his twin’s side, the one who never dreamed that place could be lost.

He is transforming here, transforming before her eyes, like a datapad downloading a new program.

When he wakes from this shock, he will be a new man. Not the boy who fled into the first ship he could find, stowing away, desperate to escape the planet. That boy died with the other Jedi on Devaron. That boy died with Bail Organa-Solo, who leaves Devaron as Kylo Ren.

Rey drops down to the floor, curling up at his side. If she were corporeal, they’d be touching, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, knowing he can’t hear her. She does it anyway, the same way she chose to go to Sinkhole Station: because she has to. “You’ll survive this, Ben.”

And he will, he will survive it. But he will never be the same.

_“Be brave, Rey of Nowhere. What returns is not the same, if it returns at all.”_

“Oh,” Rey whispers.

She thinks that is what Beyond Shadows, her own consciousness, has been trying to tell her, with these glimpses of these other universes, these Bens that are not her Ben. She thinks it’s been telling her to prepare herself. To understand that the Ben who comes back to her will not be the same Ben who died in the Temple on Coruscant. He will be changed. He will look the same, probably have the same mannerisms; but he won’t be the same. He won’t _feel_ the same.

Tears spill down Rey’s face.

So here it is, offering her this first rebirth. This moment where Ben shed a life like a snake sheds a skin. Ben has always told her that the loss of Bail broke something in him, unhinged something, changed him forever. The forcefulness of this belief had been so ingrained and understood by them both that when Rey read Ben’s palm on Zakuul and found an anomaly, they assumed it meant this moment.

_“And my life line?”_

_“Strong,” Rey says, “But this divot here indicates a cataclysm that’s changed its trajectory. I’m not sure what that means for the rest of it.”_

It means Ben died. As he did then, as he did now.

“You’ll be okay,” Rey murmurs. _“We’ll_ be okay. I told you, Ben; all the way. You’ve always been there for me, even when it wasn’t really you but Bail, when it was the sun…”

She trails off.

Ben had told her about the memory before, exchanging his as she exchanged hers, as they spoke about language and mantras and the importance of seeking comfort from everything you could. She had gone first, shyly offering up _“The sun will keep you safe”_ as this vague thing she’d always kept in her head and found enormous hope in, enough to sustain the weary child on Jakku.

And Ben had returned with his own odd mantra: _“Stars die all the time, Ben.”_

It had been Leia who’d first told it to him, in a small moment when he was a child. But over his six years of exile, the words had resurfaced somehow, and he’d focused on them with a manic intensity, unsure why but feeling it was important all the same.

And how it has been. This knowledge that stars do, in fact, die; but their light carries on endlessly.

_“No one’s ever really gone.”_

Rey thinks of mercy, and inevitability. She thinks of the lost boy who will meet her in six years, haunted and hunted. She thinks of kindness, and grace.

Rey pulls herself together, clearing her throat. She focuses, shuffling on her knees, until she’s leaning over Ben. He’s still looking straight ahead, his unblinking eyes the only indicator he’s conscious.

Rey leans over him. Her messy braid curls over her shoulder, and this is the first thing that touches Ben, a soft brush against the top of his head. He blinks, but does not turn his head, still delirious and heartbroken.

Carefully, and slowly, with that Leia Organa voice she’s worked on over the last five years, a choice that had always been done as a tease but is feeling a bit more fateful now, Rey whispers, “Stars die all the time, Ben.”

At first, she thinks he hasn’t heard her, for he doesn’t move, even as she pulls back, disappearing Beyond Shadows.

But then he breathes, a shaky exhale, blinking dazed, melancholic brown eyes.

He tips his head back, closing his eyes. Tears spill down his cold face.

He is on his way to her, now, to meet for the first time, in a stolen freighter. 

Just like she is on her way to meet Ben, again for the first time.

“Okay,” Rey says, as the dark freighter slips away, as the white nothingness embraces her again. “I understand, now. You haven’t taken me to Ben because the Ben I seek here is not the Ben I will be able to find.”

The whiteness stares back.

“I want to meet him,” Rey says, voice breaking. “Whoever he is now.”

* * *

When he first sees Crait, Ben thinks it is just more of Beyond Shadows, as the first thing he takes in is the white, the salt that dusts the ground. But then the carnage forms, the red soil under the salt, the shot down skim speeders and TIE fighters, the hole in the massive steel door in the mountain.

Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker face off.

“Did you come back to say you forgive me?” Kylo demands, spit flying from his cracked lips. “To _save my soul?”_

Luke stares, impassive. “No.”

“It was… the worst possible thing,” Bail murmurs, watching the two. Salt falls like snow around them, and the sky is a wreckage of orange. “I really wanted him to say it, you know? I wanted him to _beg._ I wanted him to debase himself in an attempt to do something I didn’t want.”

“Because you don’t want to be saved,” Ben says.

_This is it; this is the end. Bail, as a bloodied mass at Ben’s feet._

_Ben begins to tremble_

_Bail speaks._

_“Do it,” he whispers. “Do it, Ben.”_

“That was why you asked me to kill you in the Temple,” Ben continues, as the memory of that moment fades away.

In front of them, Kylo and Luke are locked in the strangest duel Ben has ever seen. Kylo is attacking viciously, and Luke is bending his body out of shape to avoid the strikes, while not doing anything back.

Bail scoffs. “I can save _myself,_ if I _want_ to. Luke doesn’t need to save me. Not when he helped create what I am. In the Temple, I said that because I couldn’t bear to live in a universe where you were so _dark._ You weren’t just trying to kill me, Ben; you were trying to _hurt_ me.”

Ben turns away, wracked with shame.

“I wanted you to hurt,” Ben confirms, unnecessarily. “I wanted you to be _sorry.”_

As if on cue, Luke stills, and says, “I failed you, Bail. I’m sorry.”

Luke is sad, so sad. His voice is choked, and gutted. An old, ancient kind of morose sorrow; the epitome of regret.

 _“I’m sure you are!”_ Kylo screams, cutting and so furious his lightsaber seems to pulse with it. “The Resistance is dead! The war is over! And when I kill you… I’ll have killed the last Jedi.”

Bail smirks at his past self’s rage, the way he has hurled his words like daggers. “Yeah. So, when we fought in the Temple? Ben, you were fighting and moving and feeling like me.”

“Amazing,” Luke says, still calmly surveying Kylo, “Every word of what you just said is wrong. The Rebellion is reborn today. The war is just beginning. And I will not be the last Jedi. Not even close.”

“Did you forget about me?” Ben wonders, glancing at Bail.

Bail’s smile is wry. “I think… I think I was still hoping you’d decide you couldn’t fight me, not now that Snoke was gone, and I was still with the First Order, meaning everything I was doing was finally my own choice.”

It’s a lesson, an understanding, Ben has struggled with. Bail, as the Supreme Leader.

Yet here he is, loving Bail despite it all. Despite everything.

“I’ll kill him, and you, and all of it,” Kylo says, quietly, staring at Luke.

Luke extinguishes the Skywalker lightsaber. Ben briefly wonders over this choice; why create a specter of that lightsaber, and not his green one?

“No,” Luke says. “Strike me down, and I’ll always be with you. Just like your father.”

Worry blossoms over Kylo’s scratched face. His mouth works, swallowing down a lifetime of memories of a father who had loved him. With a guttural cry, he takes off, running, lightsaber raised. He swings it through the air, cutting through Luke’s middle.

But Luke does not fall.

Kylo turns, horrorstruck.

“You know, he did die after this moment,” Bail muses, watching his other self approach, experimentally stabbing Luke again. “But there was no… There was nothing in it. Nothing for me. Years of rage and pain, and I should have felt like I was avenged, but all I felt was… Nothing. Because I had nothing, that was so painfully, obviously clear. I was so alone. You chose the Jedi Way, and you did not come back, and the end was coming for us. But I didn’t know when the end would be, because I still believed you had lines you wouldn’t cross.”

“But then I killed Saffron.”

Bail nods. “But then you killed Saffron.”

Alone on a battlefield of red scars, Kylo screams, and screams.

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

She is back on the shores of _Mia-Hayya,_ the Lake of Apparitions. The wall of fog, _Sulita-Nukraya,_ the Mists of Forgetfulness, look back at her. It is all so quiet, and so still. Rey is alone.

She looks down, at the calm lake.

Water, Seek had said, is a transitional form.

She is not surprised to know she will find Ben on the other side of this water.

She stretches a hand out, into the mists.

“Ben Organa-Solo,” Rey calls. “Son of Han Solo and Leia Organa. Grandson of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Naberrie. Grandson of Breha and Bail Organa. Great-grandson of Shmi Skywalker. Brother of Bail Organa-Solo. Member of Resistance High Command. Master of the New Jedi Order. Crown Prince of Alderaan.”

Rey pauses, swallowing nervously.

The lake laps at her toes.

“My love, Ben, my sun,” Rey says. _“Dmu d’Anhura. Tave vora. Ziwa. Habib._ Ben. Please take my hand.”

Jakku taught her how to wait.

She can wait for Ben.

* * *

Ben laughs at seeing the Silver Sea again. Hanna City stretches behind them, the bustling metropolis of Chandrila. On the beach itself, it is quiet, save for the giggling of the identical twin boys making stones levitate into the sea. Ben smiles at them.

“We were really little, once,” he comments.

“Should’ve stayed that little,” Bail replies.

“Is that what you meant?” Ben wonders, looking at him. “When you were talking about going further back to things that should never have happened?”

Bail seems to consider this, looking out over the pale sea.

“I think,” he says, carefully, “We were never supposed to be two separate people.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think we’re too extreme,” he says. “It was a joke for a while, you know? How you and I are total opposites, but we still _get_ each other, in a way no one ever will. How we can read the other’s mind. How we’re just two halves of one whole. Most people… Ben, most people, their other half is just themselves. That’s healthy! They always have themselves, so even when they’re alone, they’ve got an innate sense of completeness… You and I, we never had that.”

Ben thinks about the loneliness that nearly undid him, nearly drove him to suicide. He thinks about instinctively reaching for Bail in the Force, always one more time. He thinks about predicting his brother’s every move, the inane and the obvious, why he wanted the Darkstaff and which whiskey he’d drink.

“I think we bring out the worst in each other,” Bail continues. “I think we can only react to the other.”

_She laughs. “True, true. When it comes to this galaxy, you and Bail have always been proof of at least one law of physics.”_

_“How so?”_

_“Everything has an equal and opposite reaction,” Leia replies._

Bail smirks at Leia, as she fades away with the memory.

“Maybe, if we were one person, we wouldn’t be like this,” Bail says, thoughtfully. “Or, at least; we would have a hope of stability. You, with your quiet and your control and your magnificent capacity to love. The only person I’ve never stopped loving is you.”

Ben swallows, hard. “Don’t you think we balance each other out?”

“I think,” Bail says, carefully, “That balance is achievable without the kind of carnage we’ve caused. I think this universe has seen enough extremity from the Skywalkers. I think the universe has had enough of our violence. I think it would be kind to offer the universe a reprieve. I think we should offer it mercy, by giving you back to it.”

“What?”

“I make you worse,” Bail says, firmly. “I make you be a worse person than you should be. I think, without me, you could really become someone that could give balance to the universe on his own. With Rey’s unflinching devotion and moral compass… All that raw starlight… You can build something really special.”

“No,” Ben says, shaking his head. “No, I can’t… I don’t know who I would _become,_ without you!”

“You’d be at peace, Ben,” Bail says. “And so would I. This Mind Walker, before I came here, she said something to me, and I’ve been thinking about it.”

“What did she say?” Ben asks, distracted.

“She told me, _Anhura at purqana, e’t matu.”_ At Ben’s bewildered look, Bail smirks, and says, “‘The Moon will be redeemed, by mercy.’ I didn’t get it at the time, but being here now, watching what happened to us, what we did to each other… You know, the first time you ever offered me mercy was in the Temple, when you didn’t strike that killing blow. Before that, all we’d ever do is challenge and push the other.”

There was no one Ben wished to impress more than Bail; and vice versa.

“And I think it’s my turn to offer you mercy,” Bail says, “By not forcing you to become someone you don’t want to be.”

A murderer of someone he loved. A user of Dark Force abilities.

On a smaller scale: A member of a galactic military. A soldier.

_“Promise me something. Promise me that whatever you do, whatever you become… Promise me that it will always be your choice.”_

Tears drip down Ben’s face. “I don’t want this.”

And by that, he means, _I don’t want to be without you._

“We always wanted to be the best,” Bail says. “And now you can be. But rather than the _best,_ you can just be--”

“Better.”

_“Yes,” Leia says. “I wanted you both to be the best you could be. To be better than me, and Luke, and Han. But for Bail, I think…”_

_“Better is not the same thing as good,” Ben says. “Bail never wanted to be good as much as he wanted to be the best.”_

“You could change,” Ben says, thoughtfully. “I’ll help you--”

“If I change, you do, too,” Bail interjects, scowling, angry at Ben’s apparent inability to understand. “If I become better, you worsen. _That’s_ the only way we balance each other out. Don’t give me that look. We have thirty years of evidence of this. I tried to make you into the man I wanted you to be, and I nearly undid you entirely. I’m not doing that anymore.”

Silence falls.

The sea beckons.

“You have been my greatest friend,” Ben murmurs. “And my greatest sorrow.”

“Like I said,” Bail says, softly, with a hint of amusement: “We’re too extreme with each other. This place… This is the first time, I think, we’ve ever been able to meet each other halfway. Physically, but emotionally, too. I really get you, now. I mean, I always did, but… You make real sense now.”

Ben hiccups a laugh. “Yeah. You too.”

Bail’s fall was not organic. He chose it. But Ben caused it, too. And so did Luke. And so did Snoke.

Around and around and around they go.

“This is what you want?” Ben checks. “Mercy?”

“And I want to offer it to you, too,” Bail says. “Because no one knows how to hurt us like we know how to hurt each other.”

The unique brand of violence twins and brothers wreak. The sheer, cosmic destruction of the violent Organa-Solo Twins.

“I’ve never turned down an opportunity to hurt someone, you included,” Bail says. “But I don’t want to do that anymore. I want you to have the chance to live without the constant hurt I cause you simply by my existing.”

“Losing you will hurt me,” Ben whispers.

“Yeah, I know,” Bail agrees. “Good thing you’ve survived it before.”

Bail steps forward, wrapping his arms around Ben. Ben grips him back, tightly, pressing his nose into his brother’s shoulder. Bail smells like petrichor, and grief, and gasoline. He smells like coming home, like everything Ben has ever loved, come back to him now.

 _“Dmu d’Anhura. Tave vora. Ziwa. Habib._ _Ben._ _Please take my hand.”_

Ben turns his head, following the sound of the echo, staring out over the Silver Sea.

“Rey,” he breathes.

Bail smiles. “You can hear her?”

Ben frowns, turning back. “You can’t?”

He shakes his head. “No. That’s a good sign, though. What’s she saying?”

“She’s…” He blinks, focusing his gaze. If he narrows his eyes, he thinks he can see an end to the sea, thinks he can see a silhouette of a figure standing there, hand outstretched. “She’s reaching for me.”

“Atta girl,” Bail says, grinning, and he looks and sounds so much like Han that it takes Ben’s breath away. “Go on, then. Follow her.”

Ben stares at him, but knows there is no need to memorize his face, the way his eyes look in the gray light, because it’s _his_ face.

 _You and me,_ crow the boys from the past, the identical twins who had no idea what was coming for them, what they would become.

They have begun to say goodbye to each other; and Ben finds they cannot say it.

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

“Be with me,” she whispers, hand outstretched. The lake is choppy now; something has disturbed it. “Come back, Ben. _Come back.”_

_“Rey.”_

Rey cries out, stunned, and then a wall of bright light washes over her, as forceful as a tidal wave.

She closes her eyes.

* * *

Ben looks into the Mirror of Remembrance.

Bail smiles at him in the gloom.

The Silver Sea is at his back, while a new body of water, gray and desolate but a bit rough, is at Ben’s back.

Ben stares at his brother in the cracked and ancient glass, and he thinks this might be enough.

“I love you,” Ben says, because he can’t help it, because he never has, because he always will. “Just as you are, as you’ve always been.”

Ben can love the genocidal maniac, the Jedi Killer, the Supreme Leader, Snoke’s apprentice, the Sith Lord. But the galaxy cannot. And neither can the Light.

“I’ll always be with you,” Bail says, and when it comes down to it, that is really the only thing Ben’s ever wanted to hear him say. "You know where to find me."

The water seems to rise up all at once, and drowns them both.

* * *

Rey opens her eyes.

She jerks with a gasp, swaying, nearly toppling off the purple pillow under her, as her mind struggles with the equilibrium. Rey groans, pressing a hand to her head, squeezing her eyes shut tightly.

 _“Rey!”_ Chewbacca yells, and she feels his paw land heavily on her shoulder. _“Rey, are you okay?”_

 _“Kukba,”_ Feryl coos. _“Disa.”_

Rey forces her eyes open.

Sinkhole Station looks the same as it had when she’d left it to walk Beyond Shadows. Compared to the endless whiteness of that plane, the station looks drab, lines and architecture clearly breaking up the otherwise pale space. In addition to Feryl and Chewie, Rhondi is there, offering Rey a warm towel.

“Press it to your face,” she advises. “It’ll wake you up a bit.”

Rey does as suggested, holding the towel to her face. She inhales deeply, the calming scent of lavender invading her nose, calming her racing heart.

“How long?” Rey asks, and is stunned at the hoarseness of her voice. She accepts the water glass offered to her by Rhondi, taking a gulp.

“Sixteen days,” Feryl replies.

Rey stares, looking at Chewie, swallowing her water. He issues a mournful little wail, and guilt roars in her, at the knowledge of how worried he must have been, in a foreign station surrounded by so many unknowns.

She turns her head, to look at the person who’d been opposite her.

Bail is still perched on his knees; she guesses the meditation is so deep it allows them to keep that otherwise uncomfortable position, pillow and all. His chin droops to his chest, the hearty beard growing there a clear sign of how much time he’s spent unconscious. Rey shuffles to him, gently tipping his head back. His eyes are closed, but twitching under his eyelids.

“Come on, Bail,” Rey murmurs.

Her last memory of Beyond Shadows had been at the lakeshore, hand outstretched, calling for Ben with every name she knew for him.

And then she was here, opening her eyes to the living universe again.

She has a million questions.

Under her hands, Bail begins to stir.

“Bail,” Rey gasps, and she hears Rhondi’s sharp intake of breath and Chewie’s relieved rumble. Rey turns around, grasping for the towel she’d carelessly dropped. “Bail, it’s okay, we’re back. I have so many questions, you’ll have to--”

She’s turned back to face him, and frozen.

Staring at her, from behind the once solidly brown eyes of his brother, is Ben.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Tamquam, alter idem": Latin for "as if, a second self." I.E. an other half, an alter ego, an indelible friend. Shoutout to Maggie Stiefvater for teaching me that one. I almost titled this story that but managed to refrain; Latin felt weird after two non-Latin titled stories.
> 
> My compliments, to the readers who guessed that Ben was going to return in Bail's body: iluvaqt, Kunimitsu (who commented on how Ben was gonna need a new body, and this would be a problem!), mel (who guessed it 100%). It was never meant to be a twist, just a logical conclusion to the "body switching" plot line of this story.
> 
> Special shoutout to Eltara, for guessing Rey was going to visit Ben during his six-year exile. When he needed her the most.
> 
> "Stars die all the time" was something Ben obsessed over during his six years in exile; when we first meet him in AND THE WORLD WILL BE BETTER FOR THIS, he's thinking about those words. I think it's true that Leia was the speaker in his young, original memory. But now we know why the memory was so oddly fresh and important to him; because Rey repeated the words when he needed the comfort the most. (Similarly to Rey, the first time Ben really feels Rey in the Force, in Ch 7 of that story, he thinks, "It's you, I know you, I've missed you.")
> 
> I *think* there are two chapters left: an aftermath, and an epilogue. But I'm not willing to commit 100% just yet to that! Please do submit any follow up questions you have that you need to be answered, including character motivations (they make sense to me, but!!!!). No guarantees, but I can give them a shot.
> 
> Water is a transitional form.


	32. The Watcher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s good to see you, honey.”

The first thing Ben does after waking up in his brother’s body is lean over, and throw up Bail’s last meal.

Puking is always a wretched experience, but it feels particularly terrible now, since Ben was never expecting to need to deal with having a body and all that entailed ever again. Not to mention, the act is doubly disgusting due to the food having been consumed by Bail.

Bail. The previous occupant of this body.

Because as soon as Ben opens his eyes, he knows this is not his body. It’s identical, of course. On a genetic level, it’s his. But Ben knows he became one with the Force when he died. He knows his body would have vanished on Coruscant.

Yet, here he is, vomiting up half-digested rations onto a floor as white and plain as Beyond Shadows.

“Easy, easy,” a soft voice coos, and he feels a hand settle between his shoulder blades, rubbing his back in soothing strokes. “Breathe, Ben.”

Ben gasps, gagging again at the acrid tang of vomit in his mouth. He spits as much as he can, adding to the mess on the floor. He studies his hands, pressed to the floor next to the mess. Big, pale, long fingers, his. _His._ Save for a mole on the back of his right hand that he knows shouldn’t be there, knows he hasn’t seen before. Automatically, he moves his left hand, thumb brushing over the mark, making it real. Tangible. His.

A towel appears under his nose. Ben lifts his head, coming face to face with a young woman, with brown skin and long black hair, dressed in some kind of maroon uniform. She studies his face intently, as he moves to accept the towel.

“Wipe your mouth, _Mataraya,”_ she says. And then she offers him a second towel. “And then breathe this in. It will center you.”

“Who are you?” Ben asks, wiping his mouth as directed. Behind the woman is a creature Ben knows is a Givin, a walking, living skeleton, and he fights the instinct to vomit again. “What did you call me? Where am I--”

But he’s turned his head, and seen who had been sitting behind him, caressing his back.

“Rey,” Ben breathes.

Tears spill freely down her cheeks. She begins to nod, desperately, her mouth trembling. He stares at her, taking in her familiar, beloved features, while noting the differences. She’s paler than she should be, and her hair is greasy and lank, even in its messy braid.

But she is staring at him with a joy so ferocious it overwhelms anything physical.

She makes a sound then, a sound he’s never heard before, something like a moan and a purr, and she throws her arms around him, clambering into his lap, like she is trying to climb inside of him entirely. He winds his arms around her waist, pressing his face into her shoulder, blinking against the long black hair that falls in front of his eyes, obscuring his sight.

Bail’s hair.

Bail’s body.

He pulls away from her, as the urge to be sick again overtakes him.

“I know it’s disorienting,” Rey says, gently, as he retches. “It will pass.”

“He’s experiencing something a bit different, I’m afraid,” the Givin says. The skeletal face appears over Ben, and he winces at the sight. “Welcome back to the realm of the Living, Master Organa-Solo. My name is Feryl. You are in Sinkhole Station, the home of the Mind Walkers.”

Dimly, Ben recalls Bail mentioning something about a _Mind Walker._

He closes his eyes, his head swimming.

A gentle hand guides the second towel to his face, and he breathes in, inhaling lavender. It does settle him a bit, and he takes deep, even breaths.

A quiet little growl interrupts his breathing, and Ben opens his eyes, tilting his head back up.

“It’s really me, Chewie,” Ben murmurs.

The Wookiee stands over him. His entire body is vibrating, and Ben expects he’s fighting quite hard against the instinct to wrap Ben up in his arms. He either knows Ben is not prepared for that kind of gesture, or doesn’t want to risk vomit ending up in his thick fur.

There is a _schk_ sound, and two doors slide open, revealing a Gotal, with fur thick enough to rival Chewie’s.

“So,” the Gotal drawls, eyeing Ben up and down. “It is true. _Nhimta.”_

“Resurrection,” Feryl says, in response to Ben and Rey’s querying looks. He smiles, looking over Ben at Rey. “You have succeeded, _Kukba._ Brought your _Habib_ back from Beyond Shadows.”

Ben understands about half of those words. He isn’t sure if it’s all the bright white light around him causing it, but he finds it difficult to keep his eyes open. He closes them, pressing his face into the towel.

“I don’t,” Ben says, stuttering into the soft cloth. “I don’t understand.”

There is a beat in his head, strong and sure. Or perhaps it’s just his heartbeat.

Bail’s heartbeat.

With his eyes closed, Ben can see him, his brother. The soft, affectionate look he gave him from the Mirror.

“I was dead,” Ben whispers.

“Yes,” Feryl agrees. “You were. And now, you are not.”

 _“Nhimta,”_ the Gotal repeats.

Ben shakes his head, trembling violently. All he can see is Bail, all he can feel is Bail, his insides, his skin, his teeth, his--

A strange ripping sound comes out of Ben.

His ragged sobs.

“I should be dead,” Ben gasps, trembling all over, unable to stop. “I should be dead, why am I not _dead--”_

“Ben,” Rey breathes, and she presses her hand to his face. Her skin feels clammy, but he thinks it’s really his skin that’s clammy. It’s a little hard to tell, due to the thick and unkempt beard on his face. Bail’s face. “Ben, my love, you need to calm down.”

“He’s _gone,”_ Ben gasps. “He’s gone, and I’m _alone.”_

It almost feels like the Force has vacated him entirely, as Ben grapples with the realization he cannot sense Bail anywhere in it. Even when Bail was on the other side of the galaxy, causing terror and destruction, Ben could feel him, as firm and present as a lung. That space in Ben’s chest where he kept his brother is empty now. It reminds him of his six years in exile, when he was cut off from the Force, but this time is worse because the Force is here and Ben knows he should be able to feel his brother.

Ben looks down, expecting to see a gaping hole, blood and tendrils, his broken heart in his own hand.

He sees only a black shirt he vaguely recognizes as his own.

His, not Bail’s.

Bail, wearing his clothes.

The ripping sound escalates, and Ben’s head is pounding, and all he can think is _he’s gone_ and all he can feel is an emptiness, the sea of grief--

He feels a gentle _prick_ at the back of his neck (Bail’s neck) and he passes out, collapsing into Rey’s arms.

* * *

Rey brushes her hands through Ben’s long, greasy hair. It’s long, because Bail always kept his long, and it’s greasy because it hasn’t been so much as brushed in the last sixteen days. Probably longer than that, though, if Rey thinks about it. Bail wasn’t too focused on brushing his hair when his brother was dead.

Under her hands, Ben sleeps.

Rhondi throws the empty sedative needle away.

Feryl titters.

“The shock must be unimaginable,” he murmurs. His words are well-meaning, but his tone is thoughtful, and Rey is reminded of the way he smiled as he thought of Ben as the dead prince of a dead planet, and she remembers that more than anything, Feryl is a scientist, pushing the limits of reality. “Waking up in your mortal enemy’s body, when it’s the person you love the most in the galaxy?”

“A legend,” Seek says, frowning down at Ben’s unconscious form. “We are witnessing the birth of a walking legend.”

Rey shakes her head. “No. No, he’s just… Just Ben.”

“He is not _just_ anything, not anymore,” Seek snaps. “He is the _Mataraya.”_

“The what?”

 _“Mataraya,”_ Rhondi says. “The Watcher. The one who delayed death.” She pauses, and adds, “You looked into his eyes. You saw the mark.”

There is a ring in Ben’s formerly dark brown irises, around his pupils. A white, shimmering ring. Stark, and deeply unsettling. Obviously unnatural.

“You have a word for what’s happened to him, then,” Rey comments, rather than voice how discomfiting she finds this new look to be. “This has happened before.”

Rhondi shrugs. “Perhaps. But not that we know of.” At Rey’s look, she clarifies, “A Mind Walker learned the word, and the definition, while walking Beyond Shadows. Perhaps the knowledge was shared so we would know what your _habib_ was, when he returned. Perhaps we ourselves coined the word just now.”

“Because everything happens at once,” Rey murmurs, nodding.

She tightens her arms around Ben, as Chewie leans over them.

 _“Rey,”_ he asks. _“Where is Bail?”_

“I don’t know,” Rey admits.

Ben claims to be alone; and from what Rey can tell, in the Force, there does not seem to be Bail with him, inside that body somewhere. Evidently, Bail has not returned from Beyond Shadows. Instead, Ben did. Ben, who has taken his place.

Rey knows she will need to take time to sit and digest this, determine her feelings on it.

Above all, she is grateful.

Chewie carefully picks Ben up, treating him like he is something delicate and fragile. Rey follows them out of the room, as Rhondi leads them to what looks to be a recovery space. The tech is antiquated; fluids and cords inserted into bodies, providing key and lost nutrients. Rey sees several alarmingly emaciated Mind Walkers reclining in chairs, with dazed, distant expressions. She wonders if that had been her expression upon waking up.

With Rhondi’s direction, Chewie gently lays Ben down on a plain cot.

“The sedative’s effects will wear off in an hour or so,” Rhondi says. She takes Ben’s wrist in her hand, pressing her fingers to his skin, taking his pulse. “He’s already slept so long; it’s unwise to keep him under for an extended amount of time, particularly after his mind has already wandered so far. We don’t want him trying to go back.”

“No,” Rey breathes, horror struck at the thought Ben might slip away again.

“I don’t think he will,” Rhondi says, quickly, taking in Rey’s fear. “Unlike you and Bail, Ben has not taken the _Oruta_ and does not know the _Ruyana._ He should not be able to go Beyond Shadows.”

Rey narrows her eyes. “But you don’t know for sure.”

Rhondi bites her lip, looking uncertain for the first time. “I…”

The doors slide open, revealing Feryl. He carries a bowl of steaming soup, which he offers to Rey, setting it down on a table beside her.

“Eat this,” he advises. “It’ll help you gain back some of the nutrition you lost.”

Chewie wanders over, giving the soup an experimental sniff, as if attempting to detect poison, perhaps thinking of how Bail and Rey ate a seed and slept for sixteen days. But Rey cannot spare Chewie any thought; she’s focused on Rhondi’s shiftiness, on Feryl’s enigmatic quiet.

“You knew this was going to happen,” Rey says, and it is not a question.

They had been so quick to accept it was Ben and not Bail who woke up. Feryl had casually offered Ben an explanation of where he was. Seek had walked in and declared _Nhimta;_ resurrection. Rhondi had immediately called Ben the _Mataraya._

Feryl does not deny it.

“I told you, Rey,” he says, and she thinks it is a mark of the seriousness of the moment that he abandons the title of _Kukba,_ “We saw you arrive, and we saw you leave.”

“The man you came with was never the man you leave with,” Rhondi says, quietly.

Rey thinks back to the moments before she underwent the _Ruyana._ The memories are a bit fuzzy, a little distant, but she can remember how Rhondi whispered something to Bail.

“Did Bail know?” Rey asks. “Did you tell him he would not wake up?”

“I translated my words for him,” Rhondi says, shaking her head. “I told him, ‘The Moon will be redeemed, by mercy.’”

Rey knows that the Mind Walkers called Bail moonlight, _Anhura._

She frowns. “Bail never wanted to be redeemed.”

Delicately, Rhondi says, “I think Bail did not always tell the truth.” And when Rey looks immediately angry, she adds, “I think there’s a difference between wishing for absolution from the galaxy and wishing for absolution from someone you love.”

_“There is no pain, there is grace.”_

“Is he dead, then?” Rey asks.

To her surprise, Rhondi shrugs. “His future is his own. He has no way to walk backward, to find his way back to the Living. He has no vessel.”

How strange, Rey thinks, to hear a body be called a _vessel._

“He is free to wander Beyond Shadows,” Rhondi continues. “Or to walk further, to the Netherworld.”

“Not Chaos, then?” Rey asks, naming the realm of the Force the Sith were banished to after death.

“No,” Feryl says, so firmly Rey stares. “Bail Organa-Solo was many things, but he was not a Sith.” When Rey continues to stare, Feryl smiles. “No Sith would give his life so selflessly as he did.”

And Rey has no argument for this.

She turns her head instead, to study Ben. 

He feels as strange to her now as he did Beyond Shadows, in a couple of the other universes she saw. The one where he was alone on Starkiller Base, and the one where he died for her in the black stone canyon. His Force signature is frenetic, and vibrating. Changing before her eyes.

Gone is the heat, the warmth, the _sun,_ she has craved and loved.

Now, he is a shadow. Something she cannot quite see, cannot quite name. Raw and fierce and agonized and strong and wild. A ticking clock. A tempest, sweeping in with a fury.

She doesn’t know what to make of it, of _him._

“You tried to warn me, too,” Rey murmurs, glancing at Rhondi. She speaks plainly, without venom. Rhondi tried to warn her, and Beyond Shadows, her own _consciousness,_ did too. “He wasn’t going to come back the same.”

“He died, Rey of Nowhere,” Rhondi says, sympathy coating her tongue. “He lives when he should not have lived. No one can come back from that unchanged. He bears the physical markers as much as the mental ones.”

The odd, white circles in his eyes.

The jagged, iconic scar on Bail’s face. Bail’s body.

As identical twins, Bail’s body is Ben’s on a genetic level. But their scars are not the same, and neither are their moles and freckles. They have different fingerprints. And they’ve had incredibly different lives, with different diets and schedules and stresses and trials. Seemingly small things that can change the body and the mind on a molecular level.

The question of where Ben ends and Bail begins will finally be answered.

Rey is curious and terrified.

“You came back different too,” Rhondi says.

Rey frowns. “I feel the same.”

She’s tired, and _fantastically_ hungry. She desperately needs a shower. But the Force feels calm and comforting, as it always has.

“You are no longer just _Kukba,_ Rey of Nowhere, the Jedi From the Wastelands,” Feryl says. He smiles that eerie, dreamy smile, so disarming to see on a skeletal face. “You are now the _Mamitran._ The Awakener.”

* * *

When Ben dreams, he dreams of a gray lake.

He sits on the shore, legs crossed, and stares out at the water. It’s relatively calm, waves lapping gently at the shore. The sand under Ben is… fine. Neither cool nor warm, but simply there. Much like how Ben is simply here.

He cannot see far over the lake. Thick clouds of fog obscure it, and he feels like he might as well be looking into a brick wall for all the visibility he has. But there is nothing else to see, nowhere to go, and so he only sits still, and watches the fog and listens to the water.

* * *

Ben is very quiet when he wakes.

Rey sits on a rickety white chair, hands gripping the seat, and looks at him. Upon waking, Ben had gotten up from the bed, still a bit unsteady, walking around like a newborn bantha, and clambered up on the window seat. He’s been staring out at the Maw for the last ten minutes in complete silence. Rey waits, unsure what he is thinking, not willing to interrupt his processing.

“I’m sorry,” Ben says, at last.

His voice is still so hoarse, and it causes a sympathetic twinge in her own throat.

“For what?” Rey wonders. “You’re _here.”_

Ben looks away from the purple and blue lights of the Maw, to look at her. It is so obviously Ben gazing at her from those odd, white-ringed eyes, but with the scar and the way he does not feel quite _right_ in the Force… It is unnerving. If Rey wasn’t already seated, she’d be reaching for one now.

“For reacting like that,” Ben murmurs. “I’m sure you anticipated our reunion playing out quite differently.”

“I didn’t dare to imagine it,” Rey admits. “I don’t think I ever believed it would happen. Not for one moment. Imagining it, and then it _not_ happening…”

She shakes her head, not wishing to think about the trauma of getting her hopes up like that.

Ben nods, and then offers her a small, vulnerable smile. “It’s good to see you, honey.”

The formality of that statement--saying it’s good to see her, like he’d just gone off-planet for a bit and come back as scheduled--is lessened by the term of endearment he’s added on to the end, _honey,_ the one he’s always reserved only for her. _Honey,_ because she is sweet and good and someone Ben wishes to be stuck to forever.

She hiccups a sob, and Ben opens his arms.

“Come here.”

She goes quickly and willingly, crawling up onto the window seat and into his lap. She presses her face to his chest as his arms come around her. She feels him press his nose into her hair, and she cannot fight her sobs, the relief and the grief warring in her.

“You were _dead,_ Ben,” she whispers.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

It is such a _Ben_ thing, to apologize for dying. “What do you remember?”

“I remember… light,” Ben says, slowly, and she can feel his frown against her temple. “A very bright light. And the heat, like I was… I was burning out. And I remember, desperately, wishing you would know that I did not want to go. I didn’t want to leave you.”

“I know,” Rey says. “I knew.”

He’d coached her through it, repeatedly, before Coruscant. He’s always known how deep her abandonment issues run in her soul, and feared the damage his demise and departure would cause her. More than himself, he worried for her.

“But I kept thinking, too, how it was my choice,” Ben continues. “But when I think about it now… It wasn’t really my choice. It was a choice I made, but… My hand was forced. It was the only way. And I knew that, and I was worried you knew that, too, and I hated that. In a weird, roundabout, backward way, I started thinking you’d feel guilty if you thought it _wasn’t_ my choice, and so I had to decide which would be better for you, thinking I chose to leave you or thinking I didn’t. I’m still not sure.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rey says firmly.

He died. He was dead. He was gone.

And now, he’s with her again.

“How long?” Ben asks.

“About twenty days.” Rey pauses. “How long was it for you?”

“A minute,” Ben says, thoughtfully. “An eon.”

“Beyond Shadows is like that,” Rey says, and he nods against her.

She presses her nose into his chest, and she thinks about how he even smells different. He shouldn’t; this sweater has always been his, she’d pilfered it from his rucksack and given it to Bail. But the natural scent of this body is different. It isn’t bad. Just different.

She’ll have to get used to it.

“How do you feel?” she asks.

“Empty,” Ben whispers, and her arms tighten around him. “I keep thinking I’m forgetting something, but I think that’s just… Not having Bail near.”

“What’s that like?”

“Like my insides have been scooped out,” Ben replies. “Everything feels… plastic. Distant. I’m here, but I’m not here.”

_“Mataraya,” Rhondi says. “The Watcher. The one who delayed death.” She pauses, and adds, “You looked into his eyes. You saw the mark.”_

Rey closes her eyes.

_“Be brave, Rey of Nowhere. What returns is not the same, if it returns at all.”_

“I am glad to be here,” Ben says, suddenly, and Rey wonders if her grief was that obvious. “I’m so glad to be back with you. I can’t wait to see everyone again. Mom, especially.”

Rey wonders how Leia will react. Again trading one son for another.

“She’s missed you,” Rey says. “She was heartbroken.”

“I hope Bail was kind to her.”

“As much as he could manage,” Rey says, and Ben nods in understanding. “But they had a nice moment together, before we left. She called him her angry boy, and told him she had always loved him.”

“He needed to hear that,” Ben whispers.

It is hearing Ben say that, and thinking of Leia, and a parent’s unconditional love, that has Rey sitting straight up, nearly clipping Ben in the chin. She twists around, putting her hands on his thighs for balance.

 _“Ben,”_ Rey breathes. “Kriff, Ben, I have to tell you about Han!”

* * *

Han Solo was a lot of things.

He was a gambler, and a scoundrel. He was a war hero, and a smuggler. He was a general, and a pilot. He was a great card game player, a decent mechanic, and a lifelong explorer. He was a devoted husband. He was a beloved father.

And he was not Force-sensitive.

But knowing all those things about Han Solo, Ben is rather unsurprised to learn it was his father who was causing the switchings between Ben and Bail. His well-meaning, foolish father, meddling in things bigger and stranger than him. The story of Han Solo’s life. The con artist with a heart of gold.

_“You have a good heart, Ben. And it ain’t a weakness.”_

Ben cries as Rey tells him of his father, and his affection, his reunion with Bail, and his parting words for Rey.

“He said to tell you he was right, about everything,” Rey finishes.

“Yeah, he would,” Ben grumbles. But he is not upset or frustrated. If he is anything, he is relieved.

Han is dead; but he’s okay. He’s kept tabs on his sons, done what he could for them, even on a whole other plane. It is far, far more than nearly anyone else could do.

Ben regrets he did not get to meet Han Beyond Shadows, but if missing him means Ben got to come back and Han got to go to rest, he can’t be too upset. Han is now where he should be, in the Netherworld, at peace. And Ben is…

Ben is back.

The Mind Walkers feed Ben and Rey, treating them to hearty soups, thick breads, and gallons and gallons of water. Even Chewie has to tap out at some point, which is a new record, as Wookiees can out-eat just about anyone, Rey included. But Ben and Rey are famished. They’ve had a long journey.

Ben eats, enduring the nonstop staring of the Mind Walkers.

He understands what they call him now, the _Mataraya._ And for a group that prides themselves on plumbing the deepest mysteries of the Force, he can see why he’s so interesting. But it’s unnerving. Ben has never enjoyed attention, and his sojourn in the afterlife has not changed this opinion. He can’t even meet the gazes of his watchers, as that will only encourage them, cause them to stare even _more_ intently.

To be fair, the white ring in his brown eyes is very weird.

Ben knows he needs to reckon with his appearance, but he refuses to do this on Sinkhole Station.

After a day of eating and resting, Rey declares that it is time for them to leave. Neither Ben nor Chewie fight her on this, and the two of them lead the way to the _Millennium Falcon._

Chewie climbs aboard first, barely giving the Mind Walkers a glance of farewell. Ben watches him disappear up the ramp, the engines rumbling on a few moments later. He steels himself, and turns to face the Mind Walkers, Rey at his side.

Feryl clasps his hand in his two skeletal ones. _“Mapiqta, Mataraya.”_

“What does that word mean?”

Feryl smirks. “Farewell. I wish we had gotten to spend more time together. Please know you are always welcome to visit.” He turns his gaze to Rey. “As are you, _Mamitran.”_

_Awakener._

Ben typically enjoys learning new languages, but he thinks he could do without this one.

Rey’s smile is thin. “Hm. I don’t think I’ll be back here again, Feryl.”

“No,” Feryl murmurs, smile falling. “No, you won’t.”

And Ben knows that, coming from a Mind Walker, this is not a promise but a statement of fact.

Seek is next, looking Ben up and down, thoughtful.

“I saw your grandfather only once,” Seek says, and Ben blinks. “In the Temple on Coruscant. He was a child, a new apprentice. We all knew who he was, of course. They called him the Chosen One, prophesied to bring about balance to the Force.”

“Which he did,” Ben says, quietly.

“Eventually.”

It took him much longer to do it than anyone expected, but Anakin Skywalker did kill the Emperor. And the effort killed him, thus ridding the galaxy of the Sith threat.

For a time.

Seek continues, “I say this now, because I think you feel unsteady, and unbalanced. And I hope you know that this is okay. I hope you understand you can take your time, now.”

_“I hope,” Anakin continues, “that if I am not forgiven, that at least I am understood. By you. Before the end.”_

Ben nods. Seek turns to Rey.

“I forgive you for stealing my text,” he says, and Rey laughs.

“You got it back,” she says. “After a while.”

Seek is keeping the original text, _Ways of the Cosmic Force,_ the one Ben learned Rey stole from him in the past. But he and a few other Mind Walkers created a copy while Rey walked Beyond Shadows, and it is this copy Rey and Ben are taking from Sinkhole Station.

Ben thinks he’ll be able to open the text again. Someday.

Rhondi is last. She hugs Rey tightly.

“I am sorry,” Rhondi murmurs. “I admire your strength. I hope you will be able to come to terms with what has happened here.”

She says the last part of this to Ben, as much as Rey. He nods at Rhondi, as she and Rey separate, and Rhondi does not move to hug him. He is glad for this.

“If you ever wish to learn the Jedi Way,” Rey says, and Ben is not the only one surprised by this, as Seek and Feryl gawk as well, “Please reach out.”

The two women share a small, secret smile. Rhondi looks at Ben then, and gives him a firm nod. He returns the gesture, as Rhondi glances back, exchanging a glance with Feryl.

“Feryl is right, _Mapiqta_ means _farewell,”_ Rhondi says, carefully. “But it is also synonymous with _death,_ as we believe leaving Sinkhole Station and Beyond Shadows is like losing a part of your soul.”

Cold settles in Ben’s sternum, that frosted place where his brother’s presence should be.

Rhondi smiles somberly.

“I shall not say it to you,” she says, firmly. “Nor Rey. You leave death behind here. You return to your galaxy. For you, it is _Madna.”_

“What is _Madna?”_ Rey asks, warily.

“Ascension,” Rhondi replies.

* * *

Rey is not sad to leave Sinkhole Station behind.

She leans back in the pilot’s seat of the _Falcon,_ Chewie at her side and Ben at her back, as the gold-colored disc disappears into the darkness of the Maw.

 _“Good riddance,”_ Chewie grumbles, and Rey snorts a laugh.

She turns the control yoke of the _Falcon_ up, guiding the ship away from Sinkhole Station. The Maw blinks back at them, all purple and blue lights, the numerous black holes curling and rolling over one another. She can feel the intense gravitational pull each is emitting.

“Ben?” Rey asks, turning around. “Do you feel up to piloting?”

She’s seen Bail do it, and she thinks between that memory and her Instinctive Astrogation ability, she’d be able to guide them safely through the Maw and Akkadese Maelstrom. But it would be difficult; unlike when Ben and Bail learned, she didn’t have a teacher explaining how he was traversing the Maw.

Ben hesitates briefly, but either picks up on her hesitation, or takes pity on her.

He nods, rising, switching seats with Rey neatly. She watches as he settles into the pilot’s seat, and wraps his hands around the control yoke. He frowns a little, biting his lip. There is a tense, faraway look in his eyes.

 _“You okay, Ben-_ Kkata?” Chewie wonders.

“Fine,” Ben says, gruff. “Just, ah…”

_“What?”_

“It’s memory,” Ben murmurs. “It’s all memory.”

The Force is a conduit of memory. That’s how Force users are so quick to learn languages, to pick up specialized skills like piloting, or fighting. It is how Rey was able to fly the _Millennium Falcon_ through the Graveyard of Giants without having set foot in a ship before. It is how Bail was able to fly the _Falcon_ through the Maw, with the memory of his father’s efforts guiding his movements.

And it is now how Ben will do the same.

“I know,” Rey says, gently. “Of course.”

“No,” Ben interjects, shaking his head. “No, this… It’s not just the Force. I… I think I have the memory. I’ve been here before.”

As she watches, he expertly turns the control yoke to a hard, ninety degree angle, avoiding the black hole that had crept up on the starboard side. Rey hadn’t sensed it, and from Chewie’s frown at the nav chart, neither he nor the _Falcon_ picked up on it.

But Bail did, on his way to Sinkhole Station.

Ben flies the _Falcon,_ his distant eyes locked ahead of him, at the shimmering stars, and Rey wonders exactly who it was that returned from Beyond Shadows.

The Watcher.

* * *

After successfully navigating the _Falcon_ through and out of the Akkadese Maelstrom, Ben decides he’s had enough for the day, and cedes controls to Chewie. Compared to Ben and Rey, Chewie is restless, and is quick to accept, the porg called Tessalie supervising.

Ben and Rey walk away, to the bunk room.

Ben stands in it, and looks around the space. He dimly recalls the two mattresses of the lower bunks being on the floor the last time he was in here. They are not there anymore, both having been returned to their normal place on the bunks.

“Bail slept there,” Rey says, pointing to the right bunk. 

“That was his,” Ben says, and she nods.

“Right.”

Ben runs a hand over his face, his fingers catching on the beard there. “I’m… going to shave.”

Rey does not fight him on this choice. Though Ben had sported a beard when they first met, he shaved it off quickly after, and has stuck to this choice over the last five years. Possibly Rey doesn’t know what to make of him with a beard now. Or perhaps she’s hoping he’ll feel more like himself without one.

Ben doesn’t know.

He goes into the fresher, and carefully shaves sixteen days’ worth of growth off.

The scar is thin, but red, and obvious. Ben can feel it on his skin even when he is not touching it. He turns his head side to side in the mirror, looking at it from all angles. It was a true miracle, he thinks, that Bail did not lose his eye with this aggressive strike by Rey. A tiny difference in her angle of attack would have done it.

The eyes are still so eerie. The circle of white around his pupils. He does not think he’ll ever get used to it.

In addition to the scar and eyes, Bail’s moles are placed differently than Ben’s. He has one just under his left eye that Ben can’t stop noticing, one brushing the curve of his jaw, one peeking out at his hairline. And then there are the freckles and smaller moles that dot his face, creating constellations Ben has never seen before. He takes them all in, staring hard at himself in the mirror, wondering when he will think of this face as his.

“I’m Ben,” he whispers, aloud.

His reflection stares back.

A knock at the door causes Ben to jump.

“Ben?” Rey calls. “Are you alright in there?”

Ben hurriedly scrubs a towel over his face, wiping away the excess moisture springing from his eyes.

* * *

Rey changed into sleeping clothes while Ben was in the fresher, and so she sits on the right bunk and watches as Ben returns to the bunk room.

She hates herself for it, but she can’t help it; she looks at him, and sees Bail.

The scar is always the first thing she notes about that face.

Ben catches her soft intake of breath, and grimaces. 

“Sorry,” Rey says, hurriedly.

“Don’t be,” Ben says, dismissively. He sits on the left bunk and begins to take off his boots. Rey can’t stop staring at him, at his pale face and long hair, all his features that are so familiar and so loved, and somehow undeniably foreign. He looks _strange_ to her, now. Not wrong; just strange.

Ben rises to his feet, and pulls his sweater over his head.

She has seen him undress before her hundreds of times, to the point it is not always an exciting and fresh experience, but one she still relishes in, the intimacy and the closeness and the clear understanding they have. But this time is different. This time, Ben stands there, shirt in hand, and walks to the back of the room, opening a cabinet to reveal a mirror. He looks into it, turning his head, taking in the sight of his bare chest.

Bail has more scars than Ben, and Rey becomes aware that she is more familiar with these scars than Ben is, since she’s seen Bail without a shirt more often than she’d have liked. She watches as Ben brushes his fingers over the pockmarks on his ribs, divots from hard trainings and battles, all unknown. He lingers over the thick scar on his left side; the place Chewie shot Bail after he killed Han five years earlier. 

“You know,” Ben says, “This one isn’t actually _too_ weird for me. I have the scar where Jannah shot me in almost the exact same place.”

When Jannah had shot Ben, while Bail was inhabiting his body, as Bail strangled Rey in the kitchen on Ajan Kloss. 

The memory is fresh and serrated in Rey’s mind. Ben looks at her in the mirror. 

“It's you, now,” Rey says, and she hates how she sounds pleading, because that means she knows that Ben knows what she’d just been thinking about. “This body is yours.”

“It is but it also isn’t,” Ben says. “Not yet. It doesn’t… it doesn’t feel right.”

Rey supposes that’s fair. 

She watches as he kicks off his boots, a more aggressive action than she would expect from him. And she continues to watch, as he unbuckles his belt, and takes off his trousers.

Instinctively, Rey looks away.

She hates that, hates that it’s an instinct, but it is. It would be like watching Finn or Poe undress. Like watching a brother strip his clothes off. The instinct is to avert her eyes; the instinct is she has no right to watch.

She forces herself to look back, catching Ben’s knowing gaze.

“It’s okay,” he says quietly. 

“It’s not,” Rey mumbles. “This is _you,_ this is--”

“You’ve been so good,” he murmurs. “At separating me from my brother. You’ve had to be. And I’ve always appreciated that so much. But the fact remains that this is the body and the face that tried to kill you, more than once. This is a body you have worked very hard to hate.”

Rey has nothing to say to that. Because it’s true.

Ben surveys his nude body in the mirror, gaze running from feet to forehead. She wonders what he’s thinking. She wonders what he feels.

He is still so strange to her, in the Force. Her sun, but shadowed. This body of Bail is now obscuring him, hiding Ben from Rey’s sight. She is standing on the earth, and Ben is blocked, but if she squints, she can see parts of him, peeking out from the shadow. 

A one man solar eclipse.

“Do you think…” Ben starts, and trails off.

“Do I think…?” Rey prompts.

He licks his lips, and swallows. “Do you think this is a body you might be able to love? One day?”

One day, when she won’t look at his face and see only the scar she left there, the face that glared so viciously at her as the body strangled her, big hands nearly snapping her neck. The trauma beckons, but Rey bucks the instinct, and holds Ben’s stare.

“I told you before,” she says, sharply. “All the way.”

She gets to her feet, and approaches Ben. He stands there, frozen, watching her warily. She reaches out, and places her hand on his scarred chest. He shudders with the touch, like she’s struck him.

Rey tilts her head up, and offers him a smile.

_In the Temple on Coruscant now, he looks at Rey._

_“Don’t be afraid,” Ben whispers._

“I’m not afraid, Ben,” she says, and he breathes, white-ringed eyes closing in sheer relief.

Tenderly, and oh so carefully, Rey rises on her toes, and presses her lips to his scarred cheek, the scar she gave this body.

 _Mine_ , she thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Rey aren't fully ~them~ again yet. They have a lot of trauma to unpack. Ben has a whole new body he needs to get used to.
> 
> Identical twins are interesting, because yes, they do come from the same single egg. The children of identical twins are much closer to being half-siblings than cousins. 
> 
> But identical twins' DNA is not entirely the same, and recent studies have indicated that their genomes can change as they age, and one reason for this is blamed for how one twin may lead a very different life from the other. Nature vs nurture, but nurture is really making a case for itself here. 
> 
> Some things to consider for this story: Bail's blood is probably healthier than Ben's, because he's had access to really good food while Ben is a soldier living off rations. Bail's skin is probably in better shape than Ben's because Ben spends more time outdoors, but Ben's levels of vitamin D are higher than Bail's. Ben probably has more freckles. Bail's body has endured more damage than Ben's, as apprentice to Snoke.
> 
> and yes LOL ok so I lied, there will be one more chapter and THEN the epilogue. There was more to talk about.


	33. Legacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I was a Jedi. And that’s what I will be tomorrow, and for the rest of my life.”

Coruscant slinks out of the darkness, the head of a glittery snake covered in neon and pollution. Rey’s stomach rolls at the sight. She was never a fan of Coruscant, disliking how suffocated it made her feel, with its smog and endless urbanization, but knowing Coruscant is the place she watched Ben die… It hasn’t endeared her to the planet.

She really hopes the New Republic does not choose to make it their capital.

She’d share these thoughts with Leia, but Rey is sure neither Leia nor anyone else in charge will be willing to hear Rey out on _anything,_ ever again.

She shifts uncomfortably in her chair, causing Chewie to glance over his shoulder, looking at her from the co-pilot’s seat.

He smirks. _“What’s the plan?”_

“No plan,” Rey mumbles.

She’d been so determined, and then so surprised, at managing to free Bail and find Sinkhole Station that she has spent zero time thinking about what the return to Coruscant would be like. She’s had some time in the past couple days to think it over, but has come up short. Though, to be fair, she’d spent that time with Ben, talking to him, the two of them trying to sort through the trauma of Beyond Shadows and what had happened there.

Rey had told Ben about the universes she visited, the ones where she had fallen to the Dark Side, the ones where Ben was an only child without Bail. She told him about watching herself die, and watching him die, in the black stone canyon. 

She told him about going to the past and telling him _Stars die all the time, Ben._

Of all the things she told him, that fact was the least surprising to him.

“I think… I think part of me always knew it was you, that you were there,” he murmured, one night. They’d dragged the two mattresses of the bunk room back to the floor, and were lying on them, face to face, Ben on his right side, trying to hide the scar from her view. “I thought you were familiar, the first time I felt you in the Force, on Ilum.” He shrugged. “I missed you before I met you.”

And then she told him that it had been Bail who told her _The sun will keep you safe._

“He said he was a poor excuse for you,” Rey said, quietly. She held Ben’s hand in hers, tracing the line of his knuckles. “But that it was something you would do, so he’d do it, for you. And for me. I think he respected me, in… In the end.”

Ben nodded. “Yes. I got that impression as well.”

Ben was not yet ready to properly talk about Bail yet, what their last conversation had been. Rey is not sure he will _ever_ be ready. She decides to not push him on it.

They finally have time.

Above Coruscant now, Ben sighs.

“Call Mom,” he tells Chewie. “Her personal line. Tell her an escape pod will be coming to the surface in about fifteen standard minutes, and she’ll need to be there to meet it. Tell her Finn or Jannah needs to be with her.” Ben pauses. “The Resistance will arrest me, but hopefully Finn or Jannah can prevent anything… unnecessary.”

“What, like you being killed on the spot?” Rey asks with a growl.

She has never hated Bail’s scar more.

Ben has not cut his hair yet. Rey had prodded him on it, thinking it might help him feel more like _himself,_ but Ben had shrugged and said it didn’t feel right. 

Rey isn’t ready to investigate what that means.

“They won’t kill me,” Ben scoffs. “Not right away, at least. I’m sure the galaxy and the rest of the Resistance is still gunning for my head.”

It takes Ben a full ten seconds, plus catching the stares of Rey and Chewie, before he realizes his mistake. “Um. Bail’s head.”

“You’re not Kylo Ren,” Rey says, quietly.

“I know I’m not,” Ben mutters. His face is flushed. “Anyway… I’ll go down in the escape pod, and then you two will take the _Falcon_ to another part of Coruscant for eleven standard hours, and then--”

Ben pauses, as Rey and Chewie emit similar squawks of outrage.

“I’m coming with you,” Rey says.

 _“This is very dangerous,”_ Chewie says.

Ben waits for them to finish.

“It is dangerous, yes,” Ben confirms. “But I think it’s the safest way, all things considered. Mom will know I’m me. I think Finn and Jannah will too, but maybe not at first. My Force signature has changed a lot. I’m only certain my mother will know because she’s my mother.”

Because Leia has spent over thirty years recognizing and identifying her twin sons. Rey knows she’ll feel him now, his strangeness, his shadow, and still be able to find _him_ under it all. Like she did.

“And Rey, you can’t come with me,” Ben says, looking at Rey, her furious expression. “Ideally, it would only be my mother and Finn and Jannah seeing us arrive, but there’s no way that can happen. There will be a full Resistance squadron of soldiers with them, as per protocol, when the Commander-in-Chief is off-base. And these soldiers _cannot_ see the recently freed body of Kylo Ren walk off the _Millennium Falcon_ with the Master of the New Jedi Order.”

Rey’s expression drops. She knows he’s right.

“I have no critiques of how you broke Bail out of the Imperial Palace,” Ben says, gently. “It was a good plan. It minimized any witnesses. Because you understood then, as you do now, how critical it is that the Jedi are not in any way affiliated with the enemies of the Republic. That’s more important than ever.”

“Poe knows,” Rey interjects. “He knows I broke Bail out--”

“Sure,” Ben agrees. “But he’s smart enough to not spread that information around. And he’s kind enough to give you the benefit of the doubt. There’s a big difference between Poe Dameron, our friend, and someone like Borsk Feyl’lya.”

Rey has told Ben of the complimentary words Borsk said of Ben after he died. Ben had been immensely gratified, looking more smug than Rey has ever seen him. He has no wish to cause Brosk’s distrust of the Jedi to return in even greater force than ever before, and the knowledge that the Master of the New Jedi Order freed the Resistance’s greatest enemy from prison would certainly do the trick.

“You and Chewie waiting eleven hours before returning will make our returns staggered enough that no one should suspect a connection,” Ben says. He hesitates, and clarifies, “Well, people might _suspect_ something, but they won’t have proof. The escape pods in this ship are ancient, but not uncommon.”

 _“What will you say?”_ Chewie wonders. _“About what happened?”_

Ben considers it.

“The Dark Transfer,” he says, and Rey takes a sharp breath in. “I’ll tell them Bail used the Dark Transfer and brought me back to life.”

It’s an extremely rare Force ability that Ben admittedly knows little about, as it’s also extremely Dark. The power allegedly allows users to bring someone back to life.

Rey knows that Ben has no idea how it works, but this means no one else does, either. He can be creative, and no one will be any the wiser.

Chewie is clearly bewildered, but after the events of the past week, he’s obviously decided he won’t bother trying to grasp the limits of the Force anymore. Rey bites her lip, brow furrowed, and pokes through Ben’s plan, searching for flaws; looking for holes, for places she may be able to insert herself and deem it necessary for her to accompany him.

She finds none. 

“I don’t like this,” she says.

“I know,” Ben says, gently.

Ben reaches forward, grasping Chewie’s shoulder in his hand. “See you later, Chewie.”

 _“If you’re dead again by the time I get there, I’m gonna be pissed,”_ Chewie says, and Rey can’t help but smile as Ben manages to laugh, even though he hasn’t yet found himself able to truly jest about his recent demise. It is still too fresh, and the cost too high. 

He leaves the cockpit, Rey at his heels.

* * *

Rey follows him to the starboard escape pod. It is the only one remaining on the _Millennium Falcon;_ five years earlier, Rey had taken the other escape pod to meet Bail on Snoke’s dreadnought, and Ben had not gotten around to replacing it. This has caused the center of balance of the freighter to be off, but it hasn’t been so big a problem that Ben needs to rectify it.

He can feel Rey’s eyes on him as he stands in the ancient pod, setting up the destination.

“I’ll go down to the Imperial Palace,” Ben says.

“Palace of the Republic.”

“Sorry?”

Rey wrinkles her nose. “Leia’s insisting everyone call it the Palace of the Republic.”

“Oh. Right.” That makes sense. The habit will be hard to break.

“It might… help you,” Rey says. “If you call it the Palace of the Republic. Bail wouldn’t.”

She’s right. Ben files the suggestion away. He finishes programming the escape pod, and sits down in it. The pod was designed for someone smaller than him, and it’ll be uncomfortable, but the journey will thankfully be short.

“I’ll go down unarmed,” Ben says, before Rey can ask. “Bail shouldn’t have had access to a lightsaber anyway, and a blaster… Well. That won’t go over well.”

“I don’t like this,” Rey says, again.

“I know,” Ben says, again. “Feel free to comm Finn and Mom for updates. I’m sure they’ll be eager to talk to you. I’m not planning on saying anything about Beyond Shadows.”

“You’ll have to talk about Bail.”

Ben knows this, too. He bites his lip, the grief welling up in him, so fresh, so raw. He looks away from Rey’s sympathetic eyes, turning his gaze down, to where Rey’s hands are gripping the edge of the escape pod, like she is thinking about following him in. Peeking out of the sleeve of her left wrist is a familiar bracelet.

He reaches forward, and brushes his finger along the Alderaanian asteroid.

“I’d like this back,” he says, quietly. “Not right now, obviously; Bail wouldn’t have had access to it in his escape without you. But on the ground, when we next see each other. I’d like to wear it again.”

This comment does what Ben intended. Rey smiles at him, wrapping up his hand in hers.

“I’ll give you your die back, too,” she says, fishing the familiar gold die out from under her shirt.

Ben smiles, though it’s a little forced. The meaning of the die is bittersweet to him now, as it reminds him of the loss of Bail, how Ben will forever be missing half of himself.

Rather than voice any of this, he bends, bringing Rey’s hand to his mouth and pressing a kiss to her knuckles.

“It’ll be okay,” he murmurs. “I’m not leaving you. We’ll see each other again soon.”

She sighs. “I know. I just--”

“Don’t like this.”

Her smile is wry. “Right. But I know… I know Leia won’t let them kill you.”

It sounds so extreme, when she puts it that way. But they’re in a corner here. Ben’s resurrection was never going to be easy to explain. Keeping Rey and Chewie out of it is the best situation for the future of the New Jedi Order, and its role in the New Republic.

Part of Ben can’t even believe this is an actual opportunity.

The war, over. The future, now.

Returning to the Resistance alone, in the body of its sworn enemy, seems like an easy price to pay. Though it _will_ be painful.

“Give me a kiss,” Rey says, as if she can read his thoughts. He is happy to oblige.

They’ve been working on that, on reconnecting on an intimate level, over the last two days of space travel. Ben suspects he’ll need to do a lot of work to really understand that this new body is _his,_ that he can treat it as _his,_ and he’s looking forward to sparring, running, climbing, and working out. Fooling around with Rey is another aspect of this, though it requires her to also learn to accept him, as he is, like this. They haven’t gone very far. But they’re going somewhere.

Rey brushes a hand through his long hair. “See you soon.”

“Absolutely. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

She stands up, backing away, as Ben lies down in the escape pod. The lid slides over him, and he closes his eyes, trying very hard not to think of it as a coffin. It certainly could feel like one; the fit is tight, and there’s only a small window to show him the outside. He takes deep, even breaths, as the escape pod is jettisoned, followed by the tense moment of motionlessness, a metal husk floating in the space just above Coruscant.

And then the escape pod shudders, its small motor rumbling to life, and Ben breathes a sigh of relief.

The motor is just enough to prevent the escape pod from hurtling to the planet’s surface, burning up in the process. Ben is sure that Rey and Chewie haven’t gone far yet, waiting for confirmation the escape pod has landed safely before they take off entirely. He chooses to find comfort in their nearness.

He opens his eyes when the violence of the escape pod’s movements abates. Above him he can see smoggy blue sky, occasional dusky white clouds passing overhead. Transports fly over him, including a Coruscant Police Force cruiser that seems to be following him, likely wondering why an escape pod needed to be ejected over Coruscant, when there does not appear to be a ship in distress in orbit.

Ben catches glimpses of skyscrapers, obelisks and towers, and he briefly wonders what the Jedi Temple looks like now, if it’s still standing at all, and then there’s a great _thunk,_ and he slides to a stop.

He takes a deep breath, steeling himself, and then hits the button to open the escape pod.

The sun is even brighter in person than inside the shaded glass of the pod, and Ben squints, raising a hand to shield his eyes. He picks himself out of the escape pod, awkwardly wiggling out of the cramped space, stumbling to a standing position. He steps out of the pod, taking in the sight in front of him.

The Palace of the Republic is massive, close to the size of the Jedi Temple, a labyrinthian structure. There are ships everywhere, Resistance cruisers and starfighters, and Ben can see people milling around in the sprawling courtyards just behind the Palace’s sturdy gates. But he only gets a moment to take in these sights, as he’s forced to acknowledge the crowd gathered before him.

There are two dozen Resistance soldiers, Special Ops, he thinks, considering Borsk is there and standing at the head, glaring at Ben with pure loathing. Each soldier is armed, a few crouched, all ready to fire at Ben’s slightest movement of attack. Ben also spots Elya, arms crossed, wearing the poker face she has perfected through her years as Intelligence Commander. A few of her officers are with her, murmuring to one another behind their hands.

And then there’s Poe, blaster raised, staring at Ben distrustfully.

And there are Jannah and Finn, mouths dropped, eyes wide, hands on their lightsabers at their hips.

And there she is, there’s Leia.

It’s a little hard to see her, as Jannah and Poe are flanking her, clearly ready to defend her should Ben move to strike. She’s dressed in black formal trousers and a dark blue blouse, and Ben’s heart skips a beat at her hairstyle, the recognizable Alderaanian mourning braid.

She wore it after Han died. Of course she would wear it again now, for her dead son, for the loss of the Crown Prince of Alderaan.

“On your knees,” Borsk yells, and it takes Ben a moment to understand, all his thoughts so focused on Leia and her grief. He glances at the Bothan, who adds, “Hands behind your head!”

_Right._

Ben complies, sliding to his knees, lacing his fingers at the back of his skull. He remains there, perfectly still, as Borsk and the soldiers move to him.

“Kylo Ren,” Borsk says with a sneer, and Ben finds himself relieved he’s never had to face Borsk on a battlefield. “We didn’t expect to see you again.”

“Wait!”

The call comes from Leia. The soldiers all still immediately at her order, while Borsk turns, murderously.

“Commander-in-Chief, I _must--”_

“This is Ben,” Leia says, and even Elya is not able to mask her surprise. Soldiers glance at one another, suspicious, and confused. Behind them, Ben spots Jannah and Finn, leaning in, speaking quickly to Poe.

Leia approaches Ben, practically shoving past the soldiers to do so. She stares down at him, shock in her brown eyes, and Ben cannot begin to imagine what she is thinking, what she is _feeling._ He stares back at her, drinking her in, and he is a small child again, the child that only wished to cling to her, this person he loved second in the entire universe--

He blinks the memory away. Instead, he licks his lips, and says, “Hi, Mom.”

 _“Ben,”_ Leia breathes, an echo of agony, the way Rey said his name after he woke on Sinkhole Station. Her eyes are focused on his, and he wonders what she makes of the white ring around his pupils, this disfigurement in the brown eyes he inherited from her. “Ben, you’re… You’re alive.”

“Commander-in-Chief Organa,” Borsk says, delicately. Behind him, Elya, Poe, Finn, and Jannah approach. “You must be mistaken. This is Kylo Ren. Your other son, Ben, is dead.”

“I was,” Ben says, easily. “But now I’m not.”

He is the _Mataraya._

“Ben!” Finn cries. His eyes are narrowed, brow furrowed, and Ben can feel the way the Force is pulsing around Finn, and knows how intensely he’s trying to feel him. The Force coils similarly around Jannah, but she manages to keep her expression mostly smooth. “What the hell happened to you? You feel…”

 _Not right,_ Ben thinks. _Darker. Blemished. Scarred._

“You truly think this is Ben Organa-Solo?” Elya asks, frowning, looking from Finn to Leia and back.

“This is clearly Kylo Ren,” Borsk says, temper rising at the apparent insanity of his fellow soldiers. “He wears his scar. And more than that, Ben Organa-Solo died nearly twenty-five days ago, in the Temple half a mile from here. The Jedi all confirmed it.”

Ben does not envy Rey her task of informing High Command of his death. He is so proud of her for doing it, for taking charge, for stepping up. He had known she was a Jedi Master before he died, and told her as much, via the Force meld. Her work after his death tells him she would be an excellent Head of the New Jedi Order.

If need be.

Hopefully it won’t be needed.

“I was dead,” Ben says, again. “Believe me, I was. My brother brought me back to life.”

The skepticism is obvious in Borsk and Elya’s faces, mirrored by their soldiers. Even Poe looks doubtful.

“Where is Rey?” Ben adds, because that would be the kind of thing he would ask, if Bail had escaped the prison without Rey’s help, if Ben didn’t know Rey and Chewie are elsewhere on Coruscant.

He can see Poe blink, confusion clouding his face. Finn and Jannah exchange a glance, wondering how best to play along. Leia remains impassive, though Ben’s sure she’s wondering the same.

“Look,” Ben says, “I’d rather not kneel here forever. The concrete isn’t comfortable. Can we speed this along? Arrest me, take me to the secret prison under the palace, bring Garreck back in to interrogate--”

Borsk’s scowl deepens. “Did your _brother_ tell you all that?”

 _Right._ Ben might know about the secret prison, but it probably seems unlikely he’d know the name of the Intelligence Officer that had interrogated Bail.

Ben’s not even sure how he knows. He just does.

He lets himself be shoved to the ground, does not resist when his wrists are cuffed behind his back. He’s yanked to his feet none too gently, and Ben knows his last comment was probably too much information, and any doubt they had that he was not Kylo Ren has been shut down.

“Tell Rey I’m okay,” he says quickly, to Finn and Jannah. “And that I really want to see her.”

He hopes Rey will stay away for the agreed eleven hours, will understand this plea is something he says for the Resistance.

Ben is fine with this situation until a soldier approaches with a hood in his hands.

He immediately thinks back to Ajan Kloss, to sitting in a dark room, tied to a chair, while Poe tells him his body has nearly strangled Rey to death. He thinks of the hood they put on his head, in order to take him to Rey while making sure Bail would not be able to gather any intelligence about the base if he made an unexpected appearance in Ben’s body.

“This is my body now,” Ben says, automatically, eyes wide and pleading at the soldier who approaches him. He hesitates, his own eyes widening in fear, and Ben wonders what frightens him, if it’s this image of Kylo Ren or the whites in Ben’s eyes, or the strange statement. “Please, I’m alone, please, it’s only me--”

He’s alone. He is forever alone.

If they cover his eyes, he’ll be back on Ajan Kloss, he’ll be back in his body--

 _No,_ Ben thinks, _This is my body._

Borsk is speaking, and the soldier is still approaching, and fear and anger surges in Ben, a fear and anger he does not know, a fear and anger that has him thinking, _Wait--_

The soldier yells, as he is shoved back by an aggressive Force push.

Everything happens very quickly after that.

“Ben, calm down--”

“We knew it, we _knew it,_ a good lie, Kylo Ren--”

“Stun him--”

“Jedi Knights, help--”

“Master Organa-Solo wouldn’t do this--”

 _Wouldn’t I?_ Ben thinks. _I just did. I must._

There is a flash of bright red light, and Ben is unconscious before he can hit the ground.

* * *

Chewie flies Rey to CoCo Town, a commercial district on the surface of Coruscant. It’s far enough away that the Resistance isn’t likely to find them here, but close enough that they can get to the Senate District quickly if the need arises.

Rey is privately both hoping for the need, and not.

CoCo Town is busy, full of stores, restaurants, theaters, and museums. It caters mostly to the support staff of the upper levels of Coruscant, the lower class who serve and care for the wealthy citizens who live and work on the surface. This means it’s crowded, as it’s close to the lunch hour, and workers are hungry. Rey is more glad than ever for Chewie’s tall height, as it allows her to follow him through the droves without any issues.

“Where are we going?” Rey asks, almost yelling to be heard. She quickly hops to the side, as a speeder zips past.

 _“Dex’s Diner,”_ Chewie replies. _“For lunch. A friend is waiting for us.”_

“A friend--”

Dex’s Diner is a grimy-looking place, its outside dirtied by the exhaust of the speeders that drive past it everyday. Neon signs in the window advertise its twenty-four hour open status and galaxy-famous sliders. Chewie pushes the door open, ducking his head, and Rey follows him in.

The diner is remarkably clean, floors well-scrubbed, counters wiped down. The patrons all glance up carelessly as Rey and Chewie enter, before looking away again; evidently a Wookiee is just another guest in CoCo Town. Rey is glad for the anonymity.

She peers around Chewie, looking into the booths lining the windows, wondering who this _friend_ is, until a familiar and loud voice calls--

“About time!”

Maz Kanata is seated in a booth near the back. Her chin is barely taller than the table, so she waves her hand to make sure Rey and Chewie see her.

“Maz,” Rey breathes, delighted, and she darts around Chewie, racing to the small woman. Maz clambers out of the booth to meet Rey’s hug.

“Dear child,” she coos, and Rey fights the urge to sob into Maz’s thin shoulder. They had not gotten much of a chance to talk on Ajan Kloss, the departure was so quick and busy, and Rey hadn’t seen Maz at all during the actual battle. Rey is joyous to see her, now. “Tell me everything.”

* * *

Ben jerks back to consciousness with a shout.

His eyes fly open, and he gasps, taking in the brilliant light overhead that has nearly blinded him. Ben squeezes his eyes shut, adjusting to it, before daring to open his eyes again. The room comes into focus, all black tile and stone, save for one wall that appears to be made of glass. This sight, coupled with the black, reminds Ben indelibly of the Mirror in Beyond Shadows.

_“I’ll always be with you,” Bail says, and when it comes down to it, that is really the only thing Ben’s ever wanted to hear him say. "You know where to find me."_

Ben yanks his gaze away. Luckily, there is more to focus on.

Including the interrogation chair he’s strapped to. The sight of it does nothing to calm Ben’s psyche, does not help him place where or when he is, because it’s identical to the interrogation chair he was placed in on Starkiller Base, when Kylo Ren tortured him for the map to Luke Skywalker. This time, there is no needle in his arm, ready to pump his veins with a neurotoxin that will make him think his body is on fire. Nor is there an electrode keeping track of his heartbeat. 

Bail’s heartbeat.

Ben squeezes his eyes shut.

He hears a loud _click,_ a series of locks disengaging, and then the door opens, revealing Leia, Borsk, Poe, and Jannah.

“Where am I?” Ben asks.

“The Palace of the Republic,” Leia says, and Ben spots the scowl Borsk shoots at her, how Poe’s jaw hardens. Jannah lingers by the door, hands folded in front of her, lightsaber at her hip. “In Emperor Palpatine’s secret prison.”

 _Ah._ It tracks that the First Order would base their interrogation practices and applications on the Empire’s.

Ben nods, appeased. “It’s good to see you, Mom. You too, Jannah. Poe. Even you, Borsk.”

He has to be very careful, here, and not give away any of the knowledge he has that he shouldn’t, the things Rey has told him of the days immediately following the battle.

“You look different, Master Organa-Solo,” Borsk comments.

“I am different.”

“You are missing the adornment this body was wearing when it escaped from our jail.”

Ben frowns, truly confused. He’s wearing the clothes Bail had been wearing when Rey freed him. “What?”

Borsk narrows his eyes. It is possible that Borsk is bluffing, trying to trick Ben into giving an answer he shouldn’t know. Ben decides to move on.

“Where is Rey?” Ben asks.

Borsk crosses his furry arms. “We thought you might know that answer.”

“Why?”

“Kylo Ren was freed from this prison twenty standard days ago,” Borsk says. “Master Rey took off at the same time. We made an educated guess.”

 _Damn it._ Ben really can’t fault Rey for her escape plan, but… 

“She wasn’t there,” Ben says. “When I woke up.”

“Right,” Poe says. He’s maintaining a truly miraculous poker face, Ben thinks, for someone who definitely knows it was Rey who broke Kylo Ren out of prison. “Who was there, exactly? And where was this?”

“Mustafar.”

It’s about the same distance from Coruscant as the Maw is, just in another direction, so the time frame adds up. Additionally, it is a well-known Sith world.

“Celosia Ren was there,” Ben adds, and Poe and Borsk both seem to relax.

He has no idea where Vesper is, and he’s _really_ hoping the Resistance doesn’t either. But he knows Rey let Vesper go, and it stands to reason that Vesper might try to free the Master of the Knights of Ren from the Resistance’s clutches. At least, the Resistance can think so.

“And how exactly did you…” Poe waves his hand at Ben, which is a nicer gesture than outright saying, _How are you in your brother’s body?_

“I don’t know, exactly,” Ben says, and it is not a lie. “I think it must have been the Dark Transfer. It’s a Force power; it--”

“Finn told us,” Leia says, and Ben stares, because Ben hardly knows anything about the Dark Transfer, how does _Finn--_

Over Leia’s shoulder, Jannah gives a minute shake of her head. Ben bites his tongue.

“What can I do,” he says, instead, “to prove I am who I say I am?”

“You do understand why we are dubious, yes?” Borsk asks in a low growl. “We’ve always understood that Ben Organa-Solo and Kylo Ren--”

“Bail.”

Borsk pauses. Behind him, Jannah winces. “What?”

“You insist on calling my brother by his Dark Sider name,” Ben says, and though his voice is calm, there is a cold steel underneath discernable to everyone in the room. Jannah shifts against the wall, and Poe reaches for his blaster. “That’s fine, except you say it with such disdain. When my brother died, he was the furthest thing from your perception of _Kylo Ren_ as anyone can be.”

“Further even than yourself?”

“Yes.”

It is the wrong thing to say. Leia closes her eyes, and doubt darkens Poe’s face.

“I am Ben,” Ben says, quietly. He speaks to Leia now, because it is her trust and her forgiveness he craves. “But I live when I should not live. Of course I came back different.”

“We can see that,” Poe mutters, and Ben remembers his strange eyes. _Right._

Leia sighs. “Let’s take a recess.”

* * *

Maz is a smart, kind woman, so she has Rey eat her fill before she tells her story.

Maz ordered ahead of time, and so Rey and Chewie have only just sat down before a small herd of waiters arrive, carrying trays and plates of food. Fried nerf steak, potato wedges, pickled gartro eggs, sliders with the diner’s “special sauce,” pastries, and pitchers of jawa juice and caf. Their little table rapidly fills up, but the food keeps coming.

“I told them two Wookiees were joining me,” Maz explains, winking at Rey. “You eat about as much as a Wookiee, child.”

Rey is not offended; she is _delighted._

After almost a week on ancient rations and largely tasteless foods, the diner food is fantastic. Everything is greasy and salty, and Rey cleans her plate repeatedly, rejoicing in the flavors. Maz eats daintily, looking on with amusement at Chewie and Rey.

“The food in the Maw was not to your tastes, I take it?” she wonders.

Rey frowns, and looks at Chewie, who explains, _“I kept Maz updated as best I could. I needed someone to talk to.”_

“Of course,” Rey says, lowering her half-eaten biscuit. She pats Chewie’s arm. “I’m glad.”

This means that Maz knows about the Maw, and Sinkhole Station. She knows that Rey and Bail walked Beyond Shadows, though she is less clear on what this means, as Chewie’s explanations were not particularly satisfactory.

Rey does not blame him.

She tells her about it as best as she can, the endless white space, the glimpses of other universes. She talks about Bail appearing in her past, and her appearing in Ben’s past. She talks about stealing the text from the Jedi. She tells Maz that Ben woke up in Bail’s body. 

She tells Maz that she is the _Mamitran,_ and Ben the _Mataraya._ Awakener and Watcher.

Maz takes it all in, calmly cutting up her potatoes.

“He is different now,” Maz says, thoughtfully. “Physically, and in personality?”

“Yes.”

Ben knows things he shouldn’t, things about Bail, like Bail’s memories. He’s also proving to be more prone to sardonicism than he has in the past. And most of all, his Force signature has changed, and he lives in his twin’s body.

“But he loves you, and you love him,” Maz says.

“Yes,” Rey confirms. “I think we’re going to be okay.”

“It won’t be easy,” Maz says. Next to her, Chewie is daintily wiping seasoning out of the fur around his mouth. “And it will take time.”

“We finally have time, now.”

Maz smiles. “Yes. I think you do, Master Jedi.”

Rey blushes at the honorific, but can’t help but smile. Maz looks appeased.

“Your texts made it to Yavin IV,” she tells Rey, and Rey had forgotten about the texts being sent to Temiri. “Kes Dameron messaged me upon receiving them, two weeks ago. Poe had already told him Ben was dead, so Temiri opened the box.”

Rey had assumed Temiri would open the box no matter what, even if Ben thought clear instruction would dissuade him. He’s a teenager.

“Ben should call those kids when he can,” Maz says. “They were quite upset.”

“He should confirm he’s alive,” Rey agrees, “But I think we’ll hold off on an in-person visit. Temiri might be able to tell, but Arashell and Oniho will only see Kylo Ren.”

Rey knows Ben will be hurt by _anyone_ thinking of him as Kylo Ren, as he has been, repeatedly, the last five years. But the children’s fear will hurt more than anyone else’s. He’ll need to prepare for it, by getting used to this reaction from the general public. From the galaxy.

Rey has no idea how they can convince the galaxy that he is Ben, not with that scar that has been Kylo Ren’s defining feature, the physical trait Ben has repeatedly used as evidence he is not his brother.

Maz is right. It will take time.

* * *

An hour later, Borsk returns with Elya, while Jannah takes up her guard position near the door. Ben wonders why she’s the assigned security and not Finn, as he probably would ask Finn to guard Kylo Ren before Jannah. But then he thinks of Leia’s comment of how Finn told them about the Dark Transfer, and wonders if Finn is working behind the scenes, trying to smooth things out. Colluding with Rey, probably. Chaos Twins.

“Hi, Elya,” Ben says, politely.

Elya stares at him, distrust obvious. “I’m aware there is much I don’t understand about the Force. But resurrection is… Something entirely new, and something I think even a Jedi would find surprising.”

Borsk glances at Jannah, who gives nothing away.

“Thirty days ago, I might have agreed with you,” Ben says. “It isn’t something a Jedi would attempt. But the Sith have… always had fewer inhibitions.”

“But you said that Kylo Ren died as the furthest thing possible from a Sith,” Borsk says, frowning. “So how is this possible?”

There are a lot of answers to that question.

Ben chooses the one he thinks will be easiest to understand. 

“Because my brother loved me more than the Dark,” Ben says, quietly. “Because he ultimately decided the one thing he could not live with was causing my death. I know that’s hard to accept, the idea that the galaxy’s most despicable villain could think like that. I know it’s reprehensible, to put one single person before the entire galaxy. But my brother was just… Extreme.”

And so is Ben. But Ben’s extremeness has always been for good.

“And I loved him,” Ben says. “I loved him so much, and I loved Kylo Ren, including _your_ understanding of Kylo Ren, because that was always _him._ But because I am Ben, I know neither of you have siblings, and so you can’t understand how I could love him. And because I am Ben, I know Elya’s favorite food is Nuna Gumbo, but she doesn’t get to have it very often as it’s considered exotic. Just like how I know Borsk likes to end difficult days with a cigarra made of rashallo leaves.”

Two facts Kylo Ren likely would never know about those two High Command leaders.

“Feel free to quiz me more about yourselves, or the rest of High Command, or the base on Ajan Kloss,” Ben says. “I can tell you what the most common foods in the mess hall are, and where we keep our weapons. I can tell you that the main landing pad can fit up to four cruisers at a time. I can describe the enclave where the Jedi train. I can tell you about my missions, and my recent birthday celebration. You can ask.

“I’m certain the Jedi and my mother have all said something about how I feel somewhat like me, in the Force,” Ben continues. “But I know I’m not the same. And that’s a loss they, and I, have to reckon with. But I’d also say that war changes people. It changes our brains, and our instincts. It changes how we react to situations. None of us are who we were five years ago, or even thirty days ago.”

A small smile starts to grow on Jannah’s face. Borsk and Elya both look thoughtful.

“Before I was a soldier, before I was a High Command leader,” Ben says, “I was a Jedi. And that’s what I will be tomorrow, and for the rest of my life.”

* * *

Rey waits ten hours. 

Ben had told her to wait for eleven, but Rey spent the evening in an agitated, worried state, glancing repeatedly at the empty seat next to her, and so when she watches the sun set and sees it’s been ten hours since Ben landed on Coruscant, she flies the _Millennium Falcon_ back to the Senate District, and the Palace of the Republic. Chewie naps.

She had comm’d ahead of time, and so Finn and Rose are waiting for her outside.

As soon as she’s off the entry ramp, she’s running, jumping into their arms. For a moment, all the three of them can do is hug one another, the relief and the joy palpable in the air. When they separate, they laugh a little at the tears and sniffles they cannot hide.

“It’s so good to see you,” Rey says.

“You too,” Finn says, and then he punches her on the arm.

_“Oi!”_

“That’s for disappearing into space with _Kylo Ren,”_ Finn says, unrepentant. “Without a warning, or anything--”

“I couldn’t, you couldn’t know--”

“I know,” Finn says with a sigh. “I get why you did it. It makes sense. But I’m still upset.”

Rey supposes that’s fair. She knows she is not forgiven, but at least she is understood.

“Where is he?” she asks.

Finn and Rose lead her into the Palace, and due to the late hour, it’s largely quiet. They fill her in on the last ten hours, describing the intense interrogation Ben has been undergoing in an effort to prove he is himself, by offering up details and facts Bail wouldn’t have known. They took him out of the interrogation chair, at least.

“I think everyone’s waiting for your assessment,” Rose says, leading the way down to the prison level. Rey had broken the Force suppressing barrier when she freed Bail, but it’s still cold and dark, and her heart aches for Ben. “Since you know Ben better than anyone, and you’re unlikely to lie if he was really Kylo Ren.”

 _He was,_ Rey thinks. _In another universe._

The prison level is surprisingly busy, with couches, chairs, and a caf machine brought into the room leading into the prison where the guards had spoken to Rey almost thirty days previously. Rey spots Borsk, Elya, a handful of soldiers she vaguely recognizes, plus Poe, Jannah, and Leia.

Jannah goes to Rey first, throwing her arms around her tightly. Rey smiles into the hug, pressing her face into her shoulder.

“I missed you,” Jannah breathes.

“Me too,” Rey says. “I’m so proud of you. Once this is all sorted out, we will knight you.”

Jannah pulls back, eyes wide. Leia takes the opportunity to step in, pulling Rey to her in the kind of maternal hug Rey has always craved.

There is so much to say, but none they can say in front of the Resistance. They part, and Leia places a hand on Rey’s cheek.

“Is it true?” Rey asks, raising her voice for everyone to hear, playing her part of the grieving lover, whose hope has been sparked by the news of a sudden resurrection. “Is it him?”

Leia probably has critiques of Rey’s performance, but she does not voice them. She only nods her head into the prison behind her.

Rey walks inside. It is much different than the last time she was here. For example, there is a hole in the floor where she’d blown it out, and the glass in the far cell has been shattered. More lights are on, and none are flickering, and it isn’t nearly as cold as it had been. Rey stops in front of the cell closest to the door.

He’s reclining casually on the bench, eyes closed, head tilted back, dressed in the clothes he wore when he was broken out of this prison, and Rey’s heart stops because this could be then, and she blinks--

Ben smiles at her in the gloom.

“Hi, honey.”

* * *

“Your father was always just… like that,” Leia says, shaking her head. She dabs at her eyes with a tissue, and Ben smiles, turning his gaze up.

The sun is slowly beginning to set over Coruscant, meandering its way down. It is thirty-five days since Ben Organa-Solo died in the Jedi Temple. Thirty-five days since his body disappeared, and he became one with the Force.

Now, he sits in the front courtyard of the Palace of the Republic, having tea with his mother, in the body of his twin, telling her about his dead father’s intervention in their lives. 

It’s a lot.

“I’m not even surprised,” Leia says, and Ben laughs.

“He was something else,” Ben says.

“He was.”

She gets to her feet, and Ben follows. Leia laces her arm through his, and they begin to walk, conscious of the soldiers loitering nearby. Ben has been in Resistance custody for over nine standard days, much of that time spent undergoing extensive questioning. He’s answered all of the questions correctly, divulging secrets and information only he should know, including the kind of intel the rest of the Jedi never knew. But the Resistance is still insisting on an armed guard keeping an eye on him; less because they don’t think he’s Ben, but more because they can’t understand how he is.

Ben can’t complain. Sometimes he doesn’t get it, either.

“Is Coruscant going to be your new capital?” Ben wonders. He holds the gazes of the various soldiers and politicians they pass, all who stare with wide, wary eyes, flushing when Ben catches them staring. He wonders if he will ever get used to it.

“Still to be determined,” Leia replies. “I’d prefer a less polluted world. But Coruscant has the infrastructure already in place. Building a capital on Hosnian Prime was hard enough…”

She trails off, the crime fresh for both of them.

“What of the Jedi Order?” Leia asks, changing the topic. “Will it return to Coruscant?”

Ben sighs, glancing to the east. He can’t see the Temple from here, but he knows it is there; what remains of it, anyway.

“If the New Republic names Coruscant its capital, then yes, in some capacity, it will,” Ben says. “But it’ll be years before the Temple is in any shape to house Jedi. And many, many years before there are enough Jedi to fill it.”

Leia pats his arm. “You have time.”

People keep telling him that. For the first time, it is true. He does have time.

They pass through the front gates of the Palace, to where the _Millennium Falcon_ is waiting, auspicious and ancient. More of a home to Ben and Leia than anywhere else in the galaxy.

Ben turns on the spot, to face her directly. “Breakfast tomorrow?”

“Absolutely,” she replies, and Ben bends, hugging her. She hugs him back just as tightly, and he presses his nose to her shoulder, smelling lilac and stardust and grief. Leia Organa. His mother.

He’s so grateful to have more time with her.

She kisses his cheek, and they part. She reaches up, placing her hand on his chest, where Bail’s heart beats.

“I am proud of you, Ben,” Leia says. “And your father would be, too.”

Ben glances down to where her hand rests, and the epiphany hits him. But rather than say it, he only looks at Leia and says, “He’d be proud of you, too.”

He watches Leia walk back towards the Palace of the Republic, several soldiers trailing. The rest remain behind, watching Ben. He shrugs at them, waves a hand and offers a casual _good night,_ before walking up the open entry ramp of the _Falcon._

It’s quiet inside. Chewie is off elsewhere, probably a late dinner with Maz. Rey has slipped away to catch up with Finn, Jannah, and Rose. Poe is tied up in a million different meetings. Save for the soldiers outside the ship, Ben is alone for the first time since he died.

He stands still for a moment, taking in the silence. He presses his palm to his chest, and feels Bail’s heart.

Ben walks to the bunk room.

He carefully sidesteps the two mattresses on the floor, wondering if he should replace the mattresses for Finn and Jannah to use for when they fly back to Ajan Kloss tomorrow. He pushes aside his rucksack, making a note to ask Sien about using a sonic washer in the Palace for his laundry. And then Ben drops to his knees, reaching under the far right cupboard, fumbling for the loose floorboard.

It had been Borsk’s earlier comment, about the missing _adornment,_ that first got him thinking. The only thing Bail had that Ben knew of, that could be called an adornment, was his lightsaber, and the Resistance never got that.

Ben pulls the floorboard up. He lies on his front, extending his arm to reach inside.

This was a lot easier to do when they were smaller.

Ben grunts, digging around in the space. He can feel beer bottles, holovid discs, cigarettes, a lighter. But then he twists his hand, so his fingers can brush the floor, and they catch on what he had realized was waiting for him here.

It had been Leia’s comment about Han, and her hand touching his chest.

It had been the Force, and memory, and Ben thinking he’s been here before.

He sits up, holding the thin chain up to the setting sunlight slanting in through the windows.

The gold die winks at him.

The reminder that Han Solo loved his sons.

_“I’ll always be with you,” Bail says, and when it comes down to it, that is really the only thing Ben’s ever wanted to hear him say. "You know where to find me."_

The reminder that no one’s ever really gone.

“Ben?”

He turns his head. Rey hovers in the doorway. She is golden in the light, chestnut hair hanging loosely around her shoulders. She frowns at him, and then her eyes widen when she spots the die hanging from his fingers.

“He must have been wearing it during the battle,” Ben murmurs, as Rey approaches him, kneeling next to him. “Before then, I doubt he’d worn it in the last eleven years. But he must have been wearing it when he left Devaron, and he must have just… Kept it.”

Ben knows, more than ever, how while it was Kylo Ren who walked off Devaron, it was also Bail Organa-Solo. They were one and the same.

“The Darkstaff was strong, but he must have hoped he’d be able to resist its hold,” Ben continues. “Maybe he hoped wearing this die would be enough.”

“Or he knew his brother would free him,” Rey says, quietly.

Ben looks at her. 

“I’ve spent my whole life thinking about the legacies I’ve inherited,” he murmurs. “Padmé’s legacy, as a champion of democracy. Breha’s legacy, as a queen of a peaceful planet. Bail’s legacy, as a leader in the early days of the Rebellion. My parents’ legacy, as freedom fighters and heroes. Luke's legacy, as the champion of the Jedi. Anakin’s legacy, as the savior and the demon.” He pauses, and adds, “I never thought much about my brother’s legacy. But it’s mine now. Kylo Ren, and his evil and his sins. His rage, and his darkness. They are mine to carry.”

Rey clenches her hands in her lap. “I’ll carry it with you.”

Ben believes her. He pulls the chain with the die over his head.

“Keep mine,” he tells her.

 _“What?_ No, Ben, Han gave you--”

“And now I give it to you,” Ben interrupts. “It’s a matched set.”

Ben is already carrying only one half of a whole. He will learn to make peace with this. He will learn how to live with it. But this is a burden, a gift, he can share with Rey.

While she keeps the die he wore on, she tugs the bracelet with the Alderaanian asteroid off her wrist. Ben smiles, accepting it, returning it to its place on his wrist. The sunlight catches on the dark asteroid, refracting; it does the same with the Chalcedony ring on Rey’s finger. Ben holds Rey’s hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the ring.

“Still want to marry me?” he asks.

Rey looks at him. “I have traveled very far to marry you, Ben Organa-Solo.”

Into the Maw, and back. To Sinkhole Station. Beyond Shadows, and its endless universes and futures. A gray lake shrouded in fog. A moment in the past.

The scavenger from Jakku, who fled nowhere to save a droid, only to run into an anonymous cargo hauler who wished to die and disappear in equal measure. In many ways, Ben and Rey are still those people. In many ways, they will always be.

With his other hand, Ben brushes Rey’s hair back from her face. She looks at him intensely. She looks at him fearlessly, devotedly, certainly. She looks at him as she always has. This stella nova, unafraid of the solar flare, who is now similarly unafraid of the eclipse.

She reaches for him, and her index finger traces the line of the scar she placed on this body five years earlier, touching the scar with the gentleness she reserves only for the man who wears it now.

To Rey, Ben says, “I can’t wait.”

His heart beats a steady rhythm next to the gold die on his chest, and for now, it is enough to contain the empty place where his brother lived. For now, it is enough to sit here in the sunlight, to sit here with Rey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Transfer, CoCo Town, Dex's Diner: all canon.
> 
> I thought about keeping Bail's die on Devaron, but then I remembered that Leia had all of Ben and Bail's stuff from there (as mentioned at the end of AND THE WORLD WILL BE BETTER FOR THIS). Then I thought about Ilum, but the logistics of Bail leaving it there were murky (when/where??). I think the Falcon is the right choice; that time capsule where Ben and Bail are still together. (Bail visits it in Chapter 25).
> 
> I think Bail took great care to not let Rey see that he had the die when he was on the Falcon, (because he was trying to hide his true emotions) so he probably took it off when he showered and then put it in the time capsule, with the idea being it would stay there if he was unable to bring Ben back.
> 
> Poe does know it was Rey who freed Bail but he is a good friend so he won't rat her out. I think Leia or Finn probably told him; Leia, so the search for Bail wouldn't exhaust their resources (she knows he's with Rey!) and Finn, who loves Rey and Ben and Poe and knows Rey wouldn't have freed Bail for anything less than the chance to save Ben.
> 
> Trying to suggest that Ben's personality has changed a bit. He is not as patient, and he is not as nice as he was. His memory is also a bit out of whack; up to you to decide if this is a symptom of dying and coming back, the Force, or some kind of generational trauma. (The body as the vessel for trauma).
> 
> Chapter 34 will be our Epilogue. Doing my best to keep it contained to one single chapter!


	34. The Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And a good place for a home?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Mood music: "Ben & Rey Love Theme" by Samuel Kim.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JGe5GAhOf4)
> 
> cw: pregnancy. :)

**_Five years later_ **

The midnight blue lightsaber zips through the air, cutting an angry slash in the chestplate of the armored warrior, whose phrik-made sword is not fast enough to counter its blow. The identically clad warrior standing right behind his deceased comrade is similarly not quick enough to evade the ruby-colored lightsaber that slams into the meat of his upper arm. He howls with the pain, dropping his shield to grapple with the agonizing wound, and this leaves his side exposed to a lethal follow-up strike from the blue sword.

The two bodies sprawl, side by side.

A third warrior stands ten feet away, staring in horror at the sight in front of him. He tears the thin mask off his face to stare at their killer.

“Kylo Ren!” he cries, stunned, and afraid.

Their killer, the man in black, with long dark hair and beard, carrying a lightsaber in each hand, one blue and one red, but identical in design, walks forward. The slanting Ossus sunlight catches on the thin red scar that adorns half his face.

“No,” Ben Organa-Solo says. “Just the ghost of him.”

Ben throws Bail’s sword, expertly adjusting its direction with the Force, so the sword curves and doubles back to slice at this new warrior’s kneecap. He sprints at the warrior, who recovers more quickly than his companions; the Force curls around this Ysanna warrior.

Ben smirks. _Finally._ A battle with a Force sensitive enemy.

His blood sings.

Twenty yards away, a thin woman dressed in a plain black tunic and leggings has created her own mini inferno, her red sword slashing ferociously, causing sparks to fly up from the dirt under her feet. She growls, green eyes dark with concentration, her blonde braid spinning around in the air behind her. She mows down Ysanna warriors with no apparent effort, the Force guiding her movements to the detriment of her opponents’ abilities.

The gorge they fight in echoes with the screams of the dying Ysanna.

Near the top of the gorge, a young man wielding a dark green lightsaber kicks out at the warrior attacking him, causing the warrior to slide down the angled edge, right into the woman’s path. She decapitates the warrior with a single strike, as the young Jedi neatly slides down to land in front of her.

“I could’ve gotten him, Vesper!”

“Too slow, kid,” Vesper replies, smirking. “Maybe next time.”

The young man huffs, blowing a tuft of dirty blond hair out of his eyes. He leaps into the fray with enthusiasm, a rapid series of spins emblematic of the Ataru Form.

Ben catches his opponent’s sword on the crook of the crossguard blades of his lightsaber, twisting the handle and his opponent’s arm, causing the warrior to cry out in pain and double over, following his only weapon down. Ben slams his elbow into the man’s spine, causing the man to howl. The red lightsaber flies into Ben’s free hand. He sinks it neatly into the back of the man’s skull.

They are down to just seven opponents, all of whom seem to come to a silent agreement that they are no match for these three lightsaber-carrying invaders, and drop their weapons in surrender. The young Jedi lingers behind them, blocking an escape route, while Ben and Vesper march forward to survey the survivors.

Vesper spits at them, a guttural rumble Ben guesses is Ysannan.

One of the survivors issues a reply.

“There is a cave to the north, over the gorge,” Vesper translates, nodding her head to the gorge above the young Jedi. “The relics are inside it.”

“All of them?” Ben asks, eyeing the survivors.

Vesper posits his question, and the survivor replies.

“All of them,” she confirms. “Save for the weapon that one was carrying.” She points to one of the many corpses that litter the ground.

The young Jedi makes to step forward, but Ben shakes his head, extinguishing the two lightsabers in his hands, clipping one to his belt and the other to the holster on his back.

“I’ll get it, Temiri.”

Temiri frowns, but does not object. Ben walks to the identified corpse, and crouches, rifling through the corpse’s pockets. A moment later, he withdraws his hand, a triangular shaped object clenched in his fist. Behind him, Vesper recoils, while Temiri squints, trying to get a better look.

Ben peels off one of his gloves, touching his bare left hand to the object. He grips the object tightly, resting it in his palm, pressing against the metal ring on his ring finger. He closes his eyes, and listens.

_“Kuris buti j’us?”_

“Ben Organa-Solo,” Ben replies.

 _“J’us run unsenr zo tsis,”_ croons the holocron, the spirit of the ancient Sith Lord Naga Sadow. _“Kad nenx zo Jidai?”_

“Your understanding of Jedi is antiquated,” Ben murmurs. “We allow for more variations now. _Nu gaben nuyak tsis brolin ai kata.”_

The holocron has no answer for this. Ben tugs his glove back on; without the connection to his skin, the holocron grows still. He rises, tucking the holocron into his jacket pocket.

“How poetic of you, Ben,” Vesper drawls, having translated his Sith.

“What did it say?” Temiri wonders. “What did _you_ say, Master?”

“It told me I was not a Sith, but not a Jedi, either,” Ben says. He walks forward, to stand beside Vesper. The seven survivors are still kneeling on the ground, but are all staring at Ben with shock, horror, and a begrudging sort of awe. “I helped it understand why I felt that way to it. I told it that I carry my Sith brother’s heart.”

 _“Mataraya,”_ one of the survivors whispers.

 _The legends have gone farther than we realize,_ Ben thinks. Ossus is an Outer Rim world that doesn’t do much business with other systems.

“Please tell them we’ll be going to that cave now,” Ben says, and Vesper begins to translate, speaking in that garbled, angry tongue. “And taking everything inside it, and leaving. But if we find out anything was hidden from us… We’ll come back, with more Jedi.”

Even behind their plain masks, it is obvious to Ben that the color has drained from the warriors’ faces. Perhaps Vesper embellished a bit.

Ben doesn’t think causing a little fright would be bad right now.

Messing with Sith artifacts is a dangerous practice.

The warriors scatter at a hiss from Vesper. Ben steps back, as they race into the forest behind him and Vesper, disappearing among the vines and brush.

“I saw your Falling Leaf maneuver, a bit ago,” Ben says, walking to Temiri. “That was excellent. A perfect choice for that moment in combat. And why was it?”

“My opponents were focused on the ground, so they weren’t expecting an aerial assault,” Temiri replies.

“Good. But your Hawk-Bat Swoop needs work. You hesitated, and it nearly cost you a leg.”

Temiri scowls.

Vesper rolls up the sleeves of her tunic, brushing sweat out of her eyes. “Kriff, Ben, does _everything_ have to be a teaching moment? Let the kid have his victory.”

 _“Yeah,”_ Temiri says, giving Vesper an appreciative nod. “Let the man have his victory.”

“I said _kid,_ Padawan.”

“I’m _nineteen--”_

“Yeah, and Vesper is thirty-three, and I’m thirty-five,” Ben says, rolling his eyes. He reaches forward, ruffling Temiri’s hair, causing the shorter man to swear and dodge out of reach. Ben laughs. “You’ll always be a kid to us. Now let’s go raid a Sith cave.”

* * *

Rey bites her lip, watching the young Twi’lek girl floating in the air above her. The girl’s eyes are closed, her blue lekku floating gently, creating an aquamarine halo around her head in the bright sunlight. Mara is more than ready for Rising Meditation, but Rey is still nervous at letting a nine-year-old soar ten feet in the air, with nothing under her except grass.

And Rey.

“Master Organa-Solo?” a new voice calls.

“Yes?” Rey replies, eyes still locked on the floating apprentice.

“Knight Jannah is calling.”

 _Shit._ Rey knew Jannah was planning to call, and had forgotten. She turns around, to face the fifteen-year-old apprentice, a girl with straight black hair and ashy blue eyes.

“Would you mind keeping an eye on Mara for me, Nomi?”

“Yes, Master,” Nomi says, offering an easy smile. Compared to Nomi’s other tasks as a third-year Padawan, protecting a young apprentice from falling is probably easy.

Rey touches Nomi’s shoulder, and heads towards the Great Temple.

The Great Temple had proved to be an excellent location for the Jedi Praxeum. The ziggurat design of the building, with four levels, has allowed for the use of its space for barracks, training spaces, kitchen nooks, weapons rooms, and meditation chambers. The New Jedi Order is not yet large enough in number to need every room, but they are safe in the knowledge the location will be ready for their expansion.

Rey walks into the bottom level of the Temple, the hangar bay. Starfighters line the sides of the massive space, interspersed with the occasional speeder and other transport designed for use on worlds not as temperate as Yavin IV. There are also repair bays, washrooms, labs for droid maintenance, and storage. Everyone she passes, whether it be a Jedi or a mechanic or a tech, or even the occasional historian visiting this legendary sight, all give Rey nods and smiles of greetings. She allows these, as they are much less annoying than the persistent _How are yous_ she’s been getting as of late.

They mean well; Rey’s just tired of it all.

She climbs up the stairs to the second level, the Strategy Center, the space the Alliance once used as a command center, back in the days they considered this Temple to be their main base. Now, it’s home to barracks, washrooms, lockers, kitchen nooks, storage, weapons lockers, rec rooms, and communication stations. Rey walks into the center space, the place that was once the War Room for the Alliance, the place that is now the administrative office for the New Jedi Order.

She finds Arashell here, bent over a desk, giggling with the hologram of Jannah.

“Gotta go, Rey’s here,” Arashell says, straightening up. Her red hair has been tied back in a neat plait today, though her freckles are more pronounced than ever.

Rey touches Arashell’s back. “Are we still on for later? I’d like to get that cruiser’s engine fixed before Finn’s mission to Toydaria.”

Arashell briefly glances down before looking back at Rey. “Are you still okay to go into a cruiser’s crawlspace?”

 _“Yes,_ kriff,” Rey says with a groan, and Jannah laughs at the exchange. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“See you. Bye, Jannah!”

“Bye, Arashell,” Jannah says.

Arashell darts out of the room, and Rey sits in the chair at the desk. Jannah smirks at Rey.

“Dare I ask?”

“I am fine, everything is well,” Rey says, brusquely, and Jannah snorts. “Arashell’s mechanic training is on track. How’s Coruscant?”

“Busy,” Jannah replies with an eyeroll. “The contractors tell me progress is going as expected. They just completed renovations on the Room of a Thousand Fountains. It’s weird seeing it completely empty, but…”

“But the whole place needed to be scuttled.” Rey frowns.

In the end, there weren’t many plants that could be rescued from the wreckage of the Jedi Temple following the Battle of Coruscant. Rey has a few with her on Yavin IV, and still hopes to replant them in the Coruscant Temple, when it’s back in shape.

“And the Senate?”

“Oh, delightful,” Jannah says, and Rey smirks. “I can’t _believe_ you convinced me to step in as the Jedi Order’s representative. This is…”

“Boring? Exhausting?” Rey laughs, as Jannah bites her lip, clearly swallowing her true feelings down in favor of being diplomatic. “Well, my husband is helping Vesper take down a possible Sith insurgency on Ossus, and I can’t leave Yavin IV for the foreseeable future.”

Jannah smirks. “Pretty interesting, what things you are prevented from doing, and which things you can do without a problem. Seems almost like you’re picking and choosing…”

“I have to go be the representative _way_ more than you do,” Rey interrupts. “Let me have this.”

“I suppose,” Jannah allows.

“Tell me about the Mid Rim Concordance. Are they going to pass it?”

Rey leans back in her chair, rubbing her swollen stomach, as Jannah updates her on the Galactic Senate’s work.

* * *

They have finished separating the Sith relics in two piles: a _keep_ pile, and a _destroy_ pile. Vesper picks through the _keep_ pile, scanning a large sword with an impressed look, while giving a rotting text a look of abject distaste. Temiri hovers at her side like a sentient shadow, studying her every move.

Ben leans against the cave wall, eating a Jogan fruit.

“Kind of want the sword,” Vesper says, twisting to look back at Ben.

He rolls his eyes. “That sword is almost as tall as you.”

“But it’s astral,” Temiri murmurs, eyes wide.

“Not too big for you to wield then, darling?” Vesper asks, brushing a hand over Temiri’s bicep. His pale skin flushes.

Ben snorts. “Flirting with my apprentice, Vesper?”

“You’ve forbidden me from flirting with my one true love, so I’m taking what I can get.”

“I haven’t _forbidden_ you,” Ben mutters.

Vesper straightens, smirking. “Right. You just get all pissy and _weird,_ and then Rey feels badly and stops flirting back. You are standing in the way of my great love affair, Ben.”

“Your great love affair with my wife.”

Ben has always known Vesper would grow out of her teenage crush on him, known that he would never be enough to hold her attention for long. It figures that Rey, kind, daring Rey, is now the object of Vesper’s affections. Ben mostly finds this hilarious. Mostly.

He shakes the sleeve of his jacket back, checking the chronometer at his wrist. “Let’s start packing up.”

The three of them do so, carting crates of relics into the storage bay of the _Millennium Falcon._ The flight back to Yavin IV will take only about half a day, but Ben still insists on putting the _destroy_ pile in the Captain’s quarters, should Temiri decide to take a nap in the bunk room. The relics should be far enough away from him there that they won’t call to him as he sleeps.

They’ll probably try to call Ben, no matter where he is in the _Falcon._

He won’t answer.

“I’m serious about the sword,” Vesper says, eyeing the weapon.

“Really?” Ben tries to picture Vesper fighting with a sword as long as one of her legs. She has the determination to master it, at least.

“You wouldn’t let me have the one you took from Pasaana--”

“That one was darker than this one,” Ben says. He picks up the sword now, studying it. There is writing in Sith etched on the blade: _Wonoksh Qyâsik Nun._

 _The Force shall free me,_ the final line of the Code of the Sith.

Probably the most acceptable line.

“I can’t feel anything, really,” Ben says, thoughtfully. No screams, no whispers, nothing like the ugly Sith sword Rey took from the Sith Temple five years earlier, the sword he exhumed and destroyed in a blue fire on Ajan Kloss. “Yeah, okay.” 

He offers it to Vesper.

She beams. “Yeah?”

He shrugs. “Consider it a thank you for telling me about the possible uprising here.”

It’s so much easier to handle Sith insurrections when they can catch them in their early days.

“Yeah, well, that’s the agreement,” Vesper mutters.

Vesper Tille is free to roam the galaxy, plumbing its most unknown corners, unearthing the mysteries of the Force. She does not have to answer to the New Jedi Order, nor the Republic. But she is expected to tell Ben about any Dark Force users she might encounter, so he can decide how to handle them. Sometimes, it only requires a meeting, an educational gathering, an exchange of knowledge. Other times, it requires a more brutal approach, like the one today on Ossus.

The _Mataraya,_ the Watcher, the Dead Man Walking, who wields the red lightsaber of Kylo Ren.

The survivors of today’s fight will spread the word of what happened here, and hopefully the local citizens will no longer go looking for Sith artifacts.

“Want to come back with us?” Ben asks. He can hear Temiri in the cockpit, getting the _Falcon_ ready for the flight back to Yavin IV. “Spend some time with your true love? She’d be happy to see you.”

“I imagine she’d be happy to see any visitors right about now,” Vesper drawls. “She must be close to her due date.”

“About a month, yeah.”

“Then I think I’ll come to Yavin IV in about six months,” Vesper says. “Meet the kid when it’s a little less wrinkly. Congratulate Rey on birthing what is certain to be an actual giant.”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate it,” Ben replies. He pauses, and adds, “You know you’re welcome on Yavin IV any time, right?”

It’s important to him that Vesper knows she has a place to go, a bed waiting, a hot meal ready to be eaten. She has lived a nomadic life for five years, with the occasional meet-up with either Ben or Rey. Her visits to Yavin IV have been sporadic. She never stays for long.

“Yeah, I know,” Vesper says, softly. “Thanks. I am glad I got to see you. Angry you _and_ kind you.”

“I contain many dualities,” Ben says, a sentence that is less a sarcastic quip and more a literal statement of fact.

Temiri bounds out of the cockpit, meeting Ben and Vesper in the main hold. “We’re ready to take off, Master. Wait, Vesper gets the sword?”

“Come to the Dark Side, kid, we have swords,” Vesper says, but there is no seriousness in her tone, and the three of them laugh. She lets Temiri hug her, patting his back gently.

Ben hugs her next, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “It’s good to see you, Vesper.”

“You too, Ben.”

Ben goes into the cockpit. Temiri is already seated in the co-pilot’s seat, watching Vesper march to her small cruiser, the Sith sword hanging over her shoulder. The dilapidated cruiser had been how the so-called love affair with Rey began; Rey fixed it up, and Vesper swore her undying love.

Temiri looks at Ben. “I think I’m growing on her. Do you think I’ve got a chance?”

Ben laughs. “Temiri, she would eat you alive.”

* * *

For a long time, it wasn’t easy.

For a long time, Ben was angry.

When it came to the so-called five stages of grief, Ben skipped past denial, because it was very obvious and clear to him that Bail was dead. Sorrow came easily as well, as Ben had always been inclined to melancholia, was so used to depression that it wasn’t a shock to feel it so acutely again. And there was no point in bargaining, as the reality was set and there was nothing to be done.

But the anger was real.

It was anger at Bail, anger at Bail’s choices that led to Coruscant and the Darkstaff. It was anger at Bail leaving Ben, again. It was anger at Anakin, and his shadow.

It was an anger that did not belong to Ben.

He joked that he would have made an excellent case study, if an entirely unique one, on the study of twins and memory.

He was angry, and rough. He’d snap back, snarl, offer a cutting rebuke. He was not the kind, gentle man Rey had first met in the _Millennium Falcon._ He was darker, and colder. He was the shadow cast by the eclipse, the feeling of being surrounded by sunlight but not able to fully appreciate it. His goodness did not come as easily to him as it did once.

Bail might have chosen to give his life for Ben, in an effort to prevent Ben from being darker than he should be, but Ben still changed. Perhaps it was too late. Or perhaps it was simply the universe trying to correct itself, to find that balance again.

After the end of the war, the Jedi remained on Ajan Kloss, more or less running the base as the rest of High Command stayed on Coruscant or mopped up the Outer Rim. The remoteness of Ajan Kloss was a balm to Ben’s tattered soul. He learned how to fit the empty spaces of his body by sparring with Rey, running with Jannah, climbing with Finn. 

He discovered that one of Bail’s lower left ribs had been broken at some point and never properly healed, causing it to be prone to aching in cold weather. Rey told him there was a cluster of moles on the back of his left shoulder that reminded her of the shape of an aura blossom. There was an odd burn scar on his right calf in a perfect circular shape that never grew hair.

Ben catalogued these inane facts religiously. They helped him learn his body. They helped him understand his brother, and the mysterious eleven years of separation.

“It’s okay to be angry with him,” Rey murmured to him, late at night, when he walked into their room on Ajan Kloss, fresh from a midnight run.

The insomnia was new. Perhaps it was something unique to Bail, or perhaps it was another side effect of this new reality.

“Good. Because I am,” Ben said, stripping off his sweat-soaked shirt.

He sat on the bed, and breathed, and listened to the sound of his heartbeat, richoting in his ears.

The acceptance was coming to him, slowly. Ironically, it was coming to him in the way the galaxy had settled down after Coruscant, the way the Core Worlds were uniting, the Outer Rim was quieting. It was seeing the cosmic reality of Bail’s assessment of the twins.

The fact was that one of them had to go; and Bail took Ben’s place.

* * *

Rey is halfway under the belly of the YKL-37R Nova Cruiser Finn is planning to take to Toydaria, only legs and swollen belly sticking out, when she hears a familiar _ahem._

She awkwardly shuffles out from under the cruiser, smiling up at her mother-in-law.

“Chancellor,” Rey says. “You’re early.”

“Clear skies,” Leia replies, dryly. “I’m planning to be off-world for three months. I had to escape while I could, before anything terribly catastrophic could come up.”

She holds out a hand, and Rey gratefully lets the older woman pull her to her feet. Rey holds onto her shoulder for a moment, regaining her center of balance, a thing that’s grown increasingly difficult to do lately.

Leia studies her. “How are you feeling?”

Since Rey hasn’t seen Leia in four months, she’ll let this query pass. “Fine. Exhausted. Ready to meet him properly.”

Though the scan had told them as much, Rey didn’t need it to know she was having a boy. She’s already seen her son, when she walked Beyond Shadows. He was sitting in front of the Throne of Balance, playing with his sister, who Rey supposes will be coming herself in a couple years.

She’d seen herself with them, too. And a man she assumed was Bail, since he wore Bail’s recognizable scar.

In a way, that is still true.

“Have you felt him?” Leia asks, and Rey knows Leia is not asking if she’s felt her son move in her (she has, _repeatedly)._ She’s asking if her son has reached for her, as Ben and Bail did for Leia, over thirty-five years earlier.

Rey smiles. “Yes.”

He’s a wisp of a presence, something hesitant, something shy. But he is warm, and curious, and affectionate. Rey has taken to wandering off on her own, to lie in the grass near the river that runs next to the Great Temple, and lay her hand on her abdomen, and feel her son press against her, while reaching for him in the Force. It’s an odd little communion they have, but it is theirs, and she adores it.

But she is eager to really touch him, to hold him in her arms, face to face.

She is eager to see Ben meet their son.

Leia loops her arm through Rey’s, guiding her out of the hangar.

“Where is my son?” Leia asks.

“Ossus,” Rey replies. “Vesper got wind of a potential Sith uprising among the Ysanna. Ben and Temiri left a few days ago, and Ben comm’d a few hours ago that they were headed back. They should get here tonight.”

“Mm. Jannah attended this week’s Senate session, and I wondered why Ben didn’t go…”

Ben is still the most politically savvy of the Jedi, and Rey is always glad to have him go to Coruscant as their representative. But he is not always well-received there, due to the high population of politicians who look at him and remember Kylo Ren.

Luckily, Ben has had five years to get used to the stares and sneers.

“Finn and Poe are in Primaver,” Rey says, naming the town a few hours away by speeder. “I guess Kes is trying to build a barn?”

Leia snorts. “Maker, _why?”_

“Rose and Arashell want to expand the Fathier Sanctuary here,” Rey explains, smirking. “And now Kes is involved. Poe keeps grumbling that we need to find more teenagers for Kes to take in. They’re more self-sufficient than former racing animals.”

“I saw Arashell briefly earlier. How is she?”

“I keep trying to talk her into going to a proper trade school but she won’t budge,” Rey admits. “She’s happy learning about mechanics here. I guess between Ben and me it’s a decent education, plus the lessons Poe and Rose can fit in when they visit.”

Leia laughs. “Well, if she ever changes her mind, I know a few mechanical engineers who’d be happy to take on an apprentice.”

“Are you still having lunch with Oniho?”

“At least once a month,” Leia confirms. “Whenever I can drag him away from his studies. Now _that’s_ a child that has taken to academia like nothing else. I didn’t realize how much I missed out on not having academically inclined sons until Oniho started at the University of Coruscant.”

Rey snorts. “That is _not_ true. Ben’s the biggest history nerd I’ve ever met--”

“I suppose you’re right,” Leia allows. “That does remind me, though. Iphigenia’s daughter.”

Rey frowns. “Antonia? The… kriff, is she three or four?”

“Three,” Leia says, nodding. “I spoke to Ryoo a week ago. The Naberries are hoping you and Ben can make a visit to Naboo. They suspect Antonia is Force sensitive.”

Rey digests this.

The question of Force sensitivity being a genetic trait is an incredibly understudied phenomenon, considering the Jedi were staunchly against attachments that could lead to children of Force sensitives. But Anakin Skywalker was Force sensitive, and so were his children, and so were his grandchildren, and now his great-grandson. Padmé Naberrie was not Force sensitive, but perhaps there was a bit of Force sensitivity in her ancestors; perhaps Anakin is not the only reason the Skywalkers are so attuned to the Force.

As if she can hear what Rey is thinking, Leia says, wryly, “Somewhere, my mother is laughing.”

Or, it could be simple coincidence. The Force does not belong to the Skywalkers; it belongs to everyone. 

“We’d love to visit Naboo, it’s been a while,” Rey says. “Maybe in a few months? We can bring the baby for the Naberries to meet.”

“They’d be delighted,” Leia says. “You should think about visiting the Flotilla sometime, too. They’re very excited.”

Rey wrestles with this, the reminder that her son is eagerly awaited by the remaining citizens and descendants of a dead planet and nearly dead people, when Leia speaks again.

“Have you not decided on a name?”

They haven’t. They really haven’t.

There is a precedent for the Skywalkers naming children after the dead, as both Ben and Bail were named for men who were heroes and protectors of the family. Rey had hesitantly asked Ben if he wanted to name their son after his dead brother; his answer had been a quick and emphatic _No._

“I think that name has a lot of baggage attached to it,” he’d said, quietly. “The galaxy does not need another Bail Organa-Solo.”

It had been that thinking that had led them to deciding not to name their son after anyone they knew. Not Han, or Luke. It would be a new name, a name with no history attached to this family that has created cosmic carnage and change in the galaxy.

“We’re open to suggestions,” Rey tells Leia.

* * *

For a long time, things were unstable.

Ben was unstable, wrestling with his new personality, his darker urges, his new body. The New Republic was unstable (“Do we call it the New-New Republic?” Finn asked, to groans). The New Jedi Order was unstable, with no Temple and no chosen base besides the convenient Resistance base on Ajan Kloss.

For a long time, it felt to Rey that the only thing that was not unstable was her and Ben’s love for each other.

It was what led to Ben thinking of Rey as he died. It was why Rey broke Bail out of prison and flew to the Maw. It was what compelled Ben to leave his brother behind in Beyond Shadows.

Ben had proposed first. Rey proposed second.

It felt like there was always something going on, always too much to figure out, that something as frivolous as a wedding wasn’t something anyone had time to think about, much less the two Masters of the New Jedi Order. But Rey found herself looking at Ben, taking in his tired eyes and trembling hands, and she made a decision.

The leftover parts of her staff had remained in the _Falcon,_ abandoned there with the cache of parts Rey had been hoarding in anticipation of someone’s need to build a new lightsaber at some point. Rey looked at these bits, the scraps of her beloved weapon, that artifact that had kept her safe and sane on Jakku, and built something new.

“Maybe we should go to Ahch-To,” Ben said one night, sitting in front of the roaring fire pit in the enclave where the Jedi trained and studied. “There’s a Temple already there, and a Force nexus. But it’s so isolated, and so far away from everything…”

He trailed off, frowning down at the datapad in his hand, like the reports on the movements of the First Order’s surviving officers were telling him the reasons settling on Ahch-To was a bad idea.

Rey thought, _I love you so much._

She sat down next to him. “I have something for you.”

She picked up his hand, and set the ring in his palm.

It wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the Chalcedony and emerald ring he’d made for her. It wasn’t nearly as expensive, as it was made of scrap, soldered together parts of her staff that Rey painstakingly shaped to fit his left ring finger. A circle of black metal with notches and marks from wear that Rey hadn’t been able to smooth out.

Ben stared at it. Gently, like it was priceless, he picked it out of his palm, holding it closer to his face. The white rings of his eyes reflected the shape of the ring.

“You made this,” he whispered.

Rey nodded. “From my staff. I don’t have a family heirloom to give you, not like you gave me, but… For a long time, that staff was the closest thing I had to a family. I built my lightsaber with it. It’s always protected me. And so have you.”

_“The sun will keep you safe.”_

Ben swallowed, and looked at her. “Are you proposing?”

“Yes. Will you accept?”

“Always,” he murmured, and he smiled, the dimples in his face tugging at the shape of his scar.

They took up Kes’s suggestion, almost a year after the fact, and married in the backyard of his house on Yavin IV, in the shade of the Force sensitive tree planted by Shara Bey. It was a sudden, quick affair, but they managed to have everyone they loved there: Kes and the kids, Leia, Chewie, BB-8, Lando, Threepio, Artoo.

Finn and Jannah stood for Rey, Finn serving as her Best Man.

Poe and Rose stood for Ben.

The four of them being the closest thing Rey and Ben had to siblings. Living siblings, in Ben’s case.

And then the Force sensitive tree was a turquoise glow in the black sky over Yavin IV. Lando and Poe were leading a drinking song. Arashell was falling asleep on Jannah’s shoulder. Rose was teaching Oniho and Temiri a new form of Sabacc. Kes and Leia were reminiscing about their grown children. Chewie was introducing Finn to Kashyyyk liquor. The Naboo Cream Cake was nearly depleted.

Rey danced with Ben on their wedding night, as he had asked her a year earlier, the same recording of the Quenk jazz song playing around them. They were both barefoot at this point, the grass soft under their feet. Rey stared up at Ben, and part of her still couldn’t believe it, that they’d done it, they’d made it here.

“What do you think of Yavin IV?” Ben asked.

“It’s nice,” Rey said. “You know me, I love how green it is. I love how Kes and the kids are here.”

Ben smiled. “The Temple the Alliance used as a base isn't too far from here. A couple hours or so. Less in a ship. Bail and Breha Organa bought the site from the local government when the Alliance settled here, and they died before the Alliance had to abandon it. My mother still owns the deed.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“The Temple is a ziggurat, like the Temple on Coruscant,” Ben said. “It’s four levels, with space for a hangar, rooms for barracks, kitchens, training and meditation spaces.”

It clicked for Rey then, why he was bringing it up.

“Sounds like a good place for a Jedi school,” she murmured.

“And a good place for a home?”

The metal of his ring was cool against her skin, but his hand was warm, like Ben was warm, in spite of everything.

“Yes,” Rey said. “A good place.”

He kissed her, and it was exactly like coming home.

* * *

Ben sets the _Falcon_ down in its usual place outside the Great Temple.

“Can I help you carry in the Sith artifacts?” Temiri asks.

“Wear gloves,” Ben advises. “But don’t touch the _destroy_ pile, I’ll take care of that. Nomi and Edur can help but the other apprentices shouldn’t get involved.”

Temiri nods, and makes to leave the cockpit, but Ben grabs his wrist.

“You did well today,” Ben says. “I’m proud of you.”

Temiri flushes at the praise, looking immensely pleased. “Thanks, Master.”

“You don’t have to call me that all the time.”

“I know,” Temiri says. “But break starts next week, and the parents will be coming to pick up the other apprentices, and I feel weird calling you _Ben_ when they all call you _Master Organa-Solo.”_

Ben has discovered that the parents of prospective Jedi feel more comfortable ceding their children to the New Jedi Order when he introduces himself as Master Organa-Solo, giving him a title they know, that has a respected history. He knows he’s scary to them, that he looks dangerous, scarred and with a unique white ring around his pupils. He always brings Rey with him on scouting missions, because Rey’s bright smile and gentleness, both with the children they meet and with him, makes the Jedi seem much more acceptable.

It is difficult, to hand your child off to strangers, especially when the Jedi have a long history of declining to let them come home again.

The New Jedi Order refuses to follow that precedent. They take regular breaks, sending the apprentices back to their families and homeworlds.

Not everyone goes, but everyone is grateful to have the choice.

Ben and Temiri gather up the Sith artifacts, shoving them into sacks to carry. Temiri bounds off the _Falcon_ first, where he is promptly met by Arashell, eager to hear about the relics they’ve recovered, even though she’s unable to actually feel them in the Force.

Just past her, Ben spots Leia and Rey.

“Mom,” he says, in greeting, dropping the bag he’s carrying to the ground carelessly. It’s part of the _destroy_ pile, after all. He bends, wrapping his arms around her, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “You’re early.”

She touches the beard that carves his face. “Hm. You look like your father.”

“You can just tell me I should shave, you don’t need to insult me.”

Leia laughs, and Ben smiles. He looks over her head to Rey, who’s smirking.

“It’s not an insult,” Rey says. “Han was very handsome.”

“Now you’re just trying to shame me,” Ben says, and Rey laughs as he grabs her, picking her up off the ground. It hasn’t even been a week, but it feels like a lifetime, as every separation from Rey feels like. He thinks it’s because he can remember dying, and thinking it would actually _be_ a lifetime before he’d see her again. Part of him is forever expecting that final goodbye.

But then he feels her stomach between them, and knows they are much closer to a first hello.

“How are you?” he asks, setting her down gently.

“Really ready for people to stop asking me that,” Rey says. But she grins, taking his hand, and pressing it to the center of her swollen belly.

Under his hand, he feels a nudge.

“Wow,” Ben breathes, as he does every time his son reaches for him.

“Almost here,” Rey says, beaming.

* * *

For a long time, it was just the two of them.

It was Rey and Ben, traveling the galaxy, searching for Force sensitive children. The publicity the New Jedi Order received following the Battle of Coruscant and the rise of the Republic helped in this regard; people reached out, inquiring for their children. While Finn and Jannah were certainly qualified to meet these families, Ben knew it was important he go first.

“They need to see who is teaching and raising their children,” Ben said. And by that he meant himself, as the twin brother of Kylo Ren.

Their first attempts were a little rough. Mistrust and anger colored the conversations, and it was obvious the children came to the Jedi with fear in their hearts, based on their parents’ reactions to the Master who had turned up at the front door.

But Ben was determined to be a good man for them. To try.

“You are the identical twin of Kylo Ren,” a mother commented, three years into the Jedi Praxeum’s existence on Yavin IV. Rey and Ben were sitting in the living room of a Taanab family, drinking Naris-bud tea and trying to convince her and her husband that they should take their daughter, Mara, to Yavin IV to become a Jedi.

“I am,” Ben said.

“How do I know my daughter won’t turn to the Dark Side?” the mother asked. “How do I know you will make her be good, like you?”

“She won’t be good like me,” Ben said. “She’ll be better.”

The mother frowned. The father leaned forward, and asked, “Aren’t you the Master of the New Jedi Order? Aren’t you the best?”

“Rey’s pretty good,” Ben said, looking at Rey, who smirked, and touched his knee. “But in terms of the Old Jedi, and their ideas on what is good and bad, the Light and the Dark, I’m not good. I’ve known the Dark. I saw it in my brother, and I grew up with Dark voices in my head.”

Snoke, and Vader.

And now Ben, the _Mataraya,_ the one who delayed death.

“But I would say this makes me an excellent teacher,” Ben continued. “Because I know how the Dark works, and I know how to fight it, and I know how to live with it. I’ll never shame your daughter for any Dark thoughts she may have. I’ll teach her how to handle them, and grow past them. And so will Rey, and so will the other Jedi. We approach our students with compassion and kindness. We want them to be their best.”

Their own best things.

The parents agreed to send their daughter to Yavin IV in a month, giving them time to sort things out and travel. Ben and Rey returned to the _Millennium Falcon,_ and Ben looked at the stars, and then turned to Rey.

“Let’s have a baby.”

* * *

After the Sith artifacts have been safely stored away, and after a late dinner, Rey and Ben build a fire next to the river. Ben sits down on the grass and leans against one of the giant, purple-barked Massassi trees. Rey settles in between his legs, her back to his chest. They tilt their heads up, and look at the stars.

The gas giant Yavin is a massive red blot in the dark sky.

Sparks from the fire jump into the air to rival it. Sweet, low-pitched calls from Whisper birds echo in the jungle around them.

Rey leans her head against Ben’s chest, listening to his heartbeat, as he finishes recounting the events on Ossus.

“Sorry, my Sith isn’t as good as yours,” Rey says, interrupting him. “What did you say to the holocron?”

“That I carry my Sith brother’s heart.”

Rey frowns. “Bail wasn’t a Sith.”

“No, I don’t think so, not when it counted. But the holocron doesn’t know that.”

Rey snorts a laugh, and she feels Ben smile against her hair.

“Do you think he’ll come?” she asks, quietly.

He doesn’t need to ask her to clarify what she means.

* * *

In the five years since his death, since he met his brother Beyond Shadows, Ben has dreamt exclusively of a gray lake and endless fog. He has had no dreams of anything else.

He knows that he dreams of the Lake of Apparitions, and the Mists of Forgetfulness.

He knows he dreams of this place because part of him has never left Beyond Shadows.

He knows he dreams of Beyond Shadows because it was the last place he saw Bail.

Ben hopes that Bail continued on into the Netherworld, that he does not linger in the Mirror of Remembrance. Ben wants Bail to have peace, to rest. He wants Bail to be with Han again.

And he wants Bail to visit him, as a Force ghost.

It’s been five years. It took Luke five years to visit Ben, and he doesn’t know if this is an arbitrary number, a coincidence, or if it typically takes five years to learn how to become a Force ghost.

He wants to show Bail everything he’s done in the last five years. He wants to show him how this New Jedi Order is not like Luke’s, or the one before. He wants to tell Bail about Leia’s work as Chancellor of the New Republic, how she’s talking about retiring in a year, and he thinks she might actually be serious. He wants to tell Bail about Lando’s work in helping reunite former stormtroopers with their families, how Chewie helps by shuttling former stormtroopers to their families across the galaxy.

He wants to tell Bail about Vesper, how she’s finally found a purpose and peace in herself. He wants to tell Bail about Rey, her kindness with the apprentices, how she has become Kylo Ren’s staunchest defender to the New Republic. He wants to tell Bail about the Jedi apprentices, how when they display a curiosity towards the Dark, Ben sits them down and tells them about it, how the Dark calls, how it feels, what it promises, what it will destroy. He wants to tell Bail that he knows these things because part of Bail still lives in this body, that Ben has memories and feelings that are not his.

He wants to tell Bail that he will never expel an apprentice for being interested in the Dark. He wants to tell Bail that he is ready to help them navigate it, with his own Darkness he lives with everyday. 

But above all, more than anything, Ben wants Bail to meet his son.

 _He’ll be better than us,_ Ben thinks. _He’ll be smarter, and kinder. He’ll be the best of us. The Skywalkers, and you and me._

To Rey now, Ben says: “I hope so.”

He brings her hand to his mouth, and kisses her knuckles.

He feels the gold die on his chest, under his shirt.

It is a reminder that even if Bail does not come, even if Bail never comes, that he hasn’t fully left Ben. Not really.

_“I’ll always be with you,” Bail says, and when it comes down to it, that is really the only thing Ben’s ever wanted to hear him say. "You know where to find me."_

Right here. With Ben. 

Above Ben and Rey, two of Yavin’s twenty-six moons have risen, one blue and one red. While the Yavin System does not have a binary star system, these two moons seem to act like one. They glow close together in the black sky, where they will remain until the dawn, when they part, when one sets in the north and the other sets in the south.

But they will be back together the next night, and the night after that. 

Their separation will never be permanent.

They will always find their way back to each other.

Ben presses his face into Rey’s hair, feels their son reaching out to them, and waits for the sun to rise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to give you guys that wedding night dance. I have no idea what Rey and Ben name their son. Arashell isn't a Jedi apprentice, but she is Rey's apprentice. Finn and Poe are splitting their time between Yavin IV and Coruscant. All four Jedi are teachers, teaching several apprentices. Up to you to decide if Bail turns up to meet Ben's son.
> 
> WE'RE DONE. 400,000+ WORDS WRITTEN THIS FIRST HALF OF 2020. IT'S OVER.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who joined me on this journey! Be proud of yourselves, it was a lot of words. My deepest gratitude to the folks who commented; your enthusiasm was infectious and really pushed me to finish this series, which is WAY LONGER than I ever intended.
> 
> This was my first foray into writing these Sequel Trilogy characters, and I had a lot of fun. I have absolutely no idea what I'll do next. I am tired but pleased.
> 
> If you liked this story, please tell me! It was a Whole Thing. And if you ever post about this thing in the Wild, please tell me too because I'm nosy and curious.
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr.](https://theputterer.tumblr.com/)


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